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READER REACTION TO RECENT ARTICLES
FILE: ROB SWANSON
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FEEDback BETTERING BRATTLEBORO
I read [“Can ‘Niches in Inpatient Psychiatry’ Redeem the Brattleboro Retreat?” December 18] with interest, for I finished up an eight-year term on the board of trustees in 2012. In fact, I was involved when the organization decided to expand the specialty service offerings as well as to open its doors to the state hospital patients after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Your readers would be interested to know the Retreat began offering specialty programming long before Tropical Storm Irene. Its LGBT and uniformed-service programs started in 2009 and were in no way designed to “redeem” the hospital, as suggested in the article’s title. Those expansion decisions were made in response to the changing nature of providing mental health services, and in recognition that 1. with health-care reform coming, the old way of providing services would need to be changed, and 2. the financial need to innovate. At the time, the Retreat was under severe financial duress and, simply put, such problems can be met basically in one of two ways: Increase revenues with growth or cut costs. Thankfully, the Retreat chose the former path, and, while it has not been without its pitfalls and challenges, the results have justified the decision. The Retreat is now a healthy organization serving more patients and employing more health care professionals than ever before.
TIM NEWCOMB
Robert Simpson
Your article also discusses challenges the Retreat has faced in 2013 with respect to deficiencies as cited by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. While I’m not privy to what occurred, I am aware that the hospital ultimately received a clean bill of health from the federal government — a fact that the article failed to mention. Until Tropical Storm Irene forced the closing of the state hospital in Waterbury, the Brattleboro Retreat’s patient mix was largely voluntary. The decision to accept involuntary patients who were suddenly made homeless by a natural disaster showed