Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital cuts staff and beds despite pushback

Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital has cut three staff members and four of its patient beds, a decision that has inspired pushback from staff and some lawmakers.

The state-run hospital in Berlin is one of Vermont’s main facilities for acute inpatient mental health care.

The Vermont Department of Mental Health, which runs the facility and confirmed the job cuts, said that a declining patient census at VPCH over the last five years led them to bring the four beds offline and cut the three positions to align with what’s necessary. As a result, the hospital now has 21 beds.

The three staff members whose jobs ended in recent weeks were recovery services specialists, a broad support role on a patient’s treatment team that is not considered a direct care position. Only one of the four-people employed at VPCH in this position remains.

“The goal was to eliminate vacant positions whenever possible and focus on positions assigned to the unoccupied unit,” Matt Kostik, a spokesperson for the Vermont Department of Health, wrote in a written statement to VTDigger.

He said the hospital’s annual census data shared with VTDigger showed that “the system’s need for the highest acuity beds was being met,” though the state continued to staff the hospital for 25 beds — with a unit left empty. 

Yet data obtained by VTDigger complicates that claim. There is no period when the hospital opened all 25 beds, which Kostik said is due to them “not being used.” Still, the hospital’s census data show climbing demand at VPCH, with open beds at capacity. In 2022 and 2023, the hospital had a daily occupancy average of 16. By 2024 and 2025, that average climbed up to 20 — with four beds closed.

Two weeks ago, Kristen Schieman, an emergency department nurse at Central Vermont Medical Center, told VTDigger that patients can be forced to board in the emergency department for days on end, waiting for an inpatient bed such as those at the psychiatric hospital to open up. Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital is one of six in the state that provides this type of inpatient psychiatric care.

A 2025 point-in-time snapshot report from the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Services found that, for the week of May 5, 2025, 20 patients across 10 Vermont hospitals were waiting in the emergency department for inpatient psychiatric care — eight of those patients were waiting for over 24 hours. 

“Is there a need? I would say absolutely,” Kathleen Kilbourne, a spokesperson for Vermont’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said of inpatient psychiatric care. She said she had understood the need for temporary bed closures at the hospital to be a response to a shortage of staff.

The department’s rationale struck Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, as hard to believe given how much demand there is for inpatient mental health care in the state, he told VTDigger. The department had testified to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which Perchlik chairs, in March that it intended to balance its budget by eliminating only vacant positions, Perchlik said. The department has nearly 60 empty positions — 46 of them in the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital, according to data from the department. The hospital has an already high rate of annual staff turnover, at nearly 30%, per the same DMH data.

In a July 16 letter, Perchlik wrote to Mental Health Commissioner Emily Hawes urging her to stick to the plan she’d testified to or request a budget increase in order to fund the fired specialists. 

“Legislative oversight requires that the executive be forthright in their budgetary and policy plans,” he wrote. He requested that the department rescind the staffing reductions.

As of last week, the Department of Mental Health has not. 

“It’s troubling that the commissioner unequivocally and clearly said that these are going to be vacant positions,” said Steve Howard, the executive director of the Vermont State Employees’ Association, the union that represents the psych hospital staff. 

He and staff worry about the impact the cuts will have on patient care and remaining employees. More than 60 staff at VPCH have signed a petition urging the department to reconsider the firings. 

“These folks play a vital role in direct care, emotional support, in advocacy, in clinical observation and input. They play a unique role in helping people get better,” Howard said. “That’s going to shift to already-overburdened staff that are working there.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital cuts staff and beds despite pushback.