Hundreds of layoffs announced at the 2 largest healthcare networks Vermonters rely on

Hundreds of layoffs are underway at the two major healthcare networks Vermonters rely on.

Facing similar financial challenges, both Dartmouth Health and the University of Vermont Health network announced the cuts Tuesday ahead of the Oct. 1 start to hospitals’ fiscal year. 

UVM Health is in the process of laying off 199 staffers, according to a letter that network CEO Steve Leffler sent employees Tuesday. 

The layoffs include the closure of two patient care units, according to a separate release from the hospital.

The cuts at UVM Health are expected to save $16.8 million, the network said Tuesday.

Across the Connecticut River, 124 Dartmouth Health employees learned that their positions are being terminated, according to a release Tuesday from the New Hampshire-based hospital network. The network canceled an additional 303 open positions at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and at its clinics in the region.  

Vermonters rely heavily on care from Dartmouth Health, which includes the medical center, Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center in Windsor, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington and six other New Hampshire hospitals. About 40% of Dartmouth Hitchcock’s patients are Vermonters, said Audra Burns, a spokesperson for the network.

Hospitals across the nation are struggling to find financial stability. The costs of drugs, supplies and salaries are increasing, but the number of patients who seek out care and pay for it is shrinking. 

Dartmouth Health

Earlier this year, Dartmouth Health began to interrogate spending in light of its financial challenges — but Tuesday marked the first major layoffs.

An early sign of change came this summer when the network confirmed its intention to close its Tele-ICU and Tele-ED services, which the network had identified as unsustainable without outside investment.

Those telehealth services are among the three programs the network said it would eliminate as part of Tuesday’s layoffs.

Dartmouth Health also wants to end a collaborative group it has run for 17 years across community hospitals, behavioral health centers and home health agencies throughout northern New England, called the New England Alliance for Health. 

Additionally, the network plans to close an employee training program and instead outsource it. 

The cuts include an effort to consolidate executive roles and administrative positions, according to a press release.

Dartmouth Health’s staff reductions are part of a larger plan to curb spending and increase revenue. The network emphasized work it’s already done to reduce the amount it spends on temporary traveling clinicians and on sending its own staff to conferences. The network also stressed Tuesday its efforts to review operating costs like contracts and supplies, and its efforts to expand staff capacity to care for more patients. 

In April, the hospital system created a new office specifically to address the organization’s financial health. The next month, Dartmouth Health told its bondholders that it had operated at a $63.5 million loss between October 2025 and March 2026, according to reporting by the Valley News. 

“The employees affected by these changes have made meaningful contributions to Dartmouth Health, our patients and our communities,” Dr. Joanne Conroy, Dartmouth Health’s CEO and president, wrote in the Tuesday release. “Some have spent many years serving this organization. The decision to eliminate a position or program does not diminish the value of the work these colleagues have done and the contributions they have made.”

UVM Health 

UVM Health is no stranger to cuts. The Tuesday layoffs are the latest in a long series of expense reduction measures, including job cuts, that the hospital has already taken. 

“This is not the first or the last step we’ll need to take to make our health system more sustainable,” Leffler wrote in his Tuesday letter to staff.

Annie Mackin, a spokesperson for the hospital group, said the network had been in the process of figuring out how to best make these reductions well before the Green Mountain Care Board’s Monday ruling for the hospital to cut its revenue even further. 

The layoffs span all six hospitals in the network’s New York and Vermont footprint, including at Helen Porter Rehabilitation & Nursing and the network’s Home Health and Hospice Services, a release from the hospital detailed. 

UVM Medical Center now intends to close a general medicine unit and care for those patients on a similarly equipped floor. It is also consolidating an alternative care unit. Mackin said those moves were possible because the unit has had lower numbers of patients recently. UVM Medical Center has also pushed to reduce patients’ lengths of stay, she said. The layoffs at UVMMC account for 118 of the total positions affected.

At Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, three mental health technicians are among the 24 total positions being cut. The total includes patient safety attendants, who sit and observe patients who are at risk of harming themselves. Earlier this year, UVM Medical Center significantly reduced how many of those safety observers work in that hospital. Central Vermont Medical Center plans to re-post 11 of those roles with changed responsibilities.

UVM Health has also consolidated or cut 28 positions in human resources, information technology and community health. The changes are designed to reduce duplication across the health system, a release from UVM Health said, rather than eliminate the services altogether.

A joint press release from the Vermont Federation of Nurses, which includes nursing staff across UVM Health, and Health Professionals & Support Staff United — the union of technicians, nursing assistants and others — estimated that about 90 union members were among those laid off. 

“We are deeply concerned by these decisions — above all for the safety and wellbeing of our patients,” the release said. “Management has yet to provide plans for how quality patient care will continue to (be) delivered to our community. These cuts to care come after years of exorbitant costs to Vermonters, and million dollar salaries for executives. If UVM Health is serious about fiscal sustainability, they would reverse short-sighted cuts to patient-facing roles, and partner with our unions to champion systemic healthcare reform.” 

The two unions have an all-day bargaining session with the hospital scheduled for Wednesday, following the expiration of both unions’ contracts.

The layoffs will take effect by the end of October, Leffler wrote in his letter to staff.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Hundreds of layoffs announced at the 2 largest healthcare networks Vermonters rely on.