News

Harmony Birch reports on the 12th annual Tour de Grace Bicycle Rally:

Saturday’s Tour de Grace Bike Rally broke records with 107 participants. Though the skies were overcast, people from at least eight different states – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Georgia and, of course, Vermont – showed up to support Grace Cottage Hospital. The bike rally has been going on for 12 years. Cyclists paid $25 to $30 to register, with about $6,000 raised this year. All proceeds go to Grace Cottage, a nonprofit hospital in operation since 1949. It is designated as a Critical Access Hospital, a status given to hospitals in rural regions to reduce financial vulnerability.

Mike Faher reports on food insecurity in Windham County and on programs run at Grace Cottage to address the issue:
Federal statistics offer some positive news for hunger in Vermont: Over the past several years, the state’s rate of “food insecurity” has been trending slowly but steadily downward. But those numbers don’t mean much in the West River Valley region of Windham County, where community volunteers and school staffers are seeing a growing number of families who don’t have enough to eat. Their responses are diverse: A nurse is starting an in-school food shelf; a community organization is hosting cooking classes and free soup nights, and Grace Cottage Hospital is trying to grow a ton of tomatoes for the local food bank.

Grace Cottage CEO Roger Allbee is quoted in this article about the potential effects of an Obamacare repeal:
Roger Allbee, the CEO of Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend, said the Medicaid cuts would also hit his small community hospital, which he said is already losing $2 million a year treating Medicaid patients, because the reimbursements are so low. “It’s absolutely devastating what they’re doing,” Allbee said. “It would be hard for a rural health care center like ours, which serves 14 communities, to even exist in the future under their plan. It’s devastating, absolutely devastating.”