News

Despite a record number of patients using our many services, and despite independent quality assessments highlighting our best-in-class hospital inpatient program, we, like so many other hospitals in Vermont, are struggling with the Green Mountain Care Board’s budget decisions (the Green Mountain Care Board oversees Vermont’s hospital budgets). After we received our budget order in October, we recently completed the very difficult task of identifying $1.7 million of expenses to cut for fiscal year 2025 (10/1/24-9/30/25). We are very pleased that we have managed to do this without cutting patient services or eliminating positions, things that some other hospitals in Vermont, including the University of Vermont, had to do in order to meet their budget orders.

We were very pleased and touched that 90 people came to our Community Forum in support of Grace Cottage at the Townshend Town Hall on October 24. If you weren’t able to make the meeting, you can watch the Brattleboro Public Television recording by clicking here. If you’d like to read some of the comments on the Green Mountain Care Board’s website about how important Grace Cottage is to our patients, click here. We appreciate any and all supportive voices, and your voice will be heard, by the Green Mountain Care Board and by your local legislators.

Please join us for the ribbon cutting at the new Grace Cottage Outpatient Rehabilitation Services Building at 133 Grafton Road in Townshend on Wednesday, December 18 at noon. Tours of the interior of the building will be available from noon-1 on that day.

“We’ve grown from seeing an average of 34 patients a day to seeing as many as 70 people a day,” said Crystal Mansfield, Senior Director of Rehabilitation Services. “It’s a good thing we’ve had a lot of nice weather this summer and fall, because we’ve been bursting at the seams in our current building, so some of our therapy sessions have been held outside!”

Attendees at the ribbon-cutting ceremony will have the opportunity to see the 11 new treatment rooms (including specific rooms designated for specialized pediatric treatment, hand & occupational therapy, lymphedema services, and pelvic health), and the large new Rehab gym.

After Black Friday and Cyber Monday comes Giving Tuesday, a worldwide day of philanthropy during the season of gratitude. This year, Giving Tuesday falls on December 3.

Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital is asking for Giving Tuesday donations for the purchase of various pieces of state-of-the art equipment for our newly renovated Outpatient Rehab clinic building. The equipment we would like to add is designed to help patients return to optimal health as fast and completely as possible. Community support will help to get this expanded space up and running at full capacity. Checks payable to Grace Cottage with “Giving Tuesday” on the memo line may be sent to PO Box 1, Townshend, VT  05353. For details on the equipment or to make an online donation for this purpose at any time before the end of 2024, call 802-365-9109 or click here.

If it is, you might want to reconsider and take a look at this article written by our own Dr. Anne Brewer. Board-certified in Family Medicine, Geriatrics, Palliative Care, and Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Brewer is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Vermont College of Medicine. She joined Grace Cottage in 2017.

Grace Cottage Hospital inpatients often comment favorably on the high quality of the food that is served to them three times a day. Our dietary department has done it again, scoring 100% on surprise inspections by the Vermont Department of Health, twice in a row (approximately six months apart). It is darn near impossible to score 100% – and the inspectors tried as hard as they could to find something wrong! CONGRATULATIONS, Denise Choleva and crew.

From left to right, Chantae Samuels, Ronan Sweeney, Julie St. Pierre, Denise Choleva, and Nida Donovan. Not pictured: Jim Martis, Dylan Polnack, Linda Columbus, and Amber Ahearn.