Area health care leaders discuss the crisis in rural health care

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - As health care continues to be impacted by issues like staffing and inflation, rural health care is at times hit the hardest.

Monday, the CEOs of the UVM Health Network, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Maine Health held a public forum on the challenges their rural hospitals face. Issues such as recruiting and retaining health care workers, the impacts of inflation and regulatory challenges were all discussed.

“Health care is kind of a rough business right now. But it’s really rough in rural America where we don’t have public transportation and we don’t have adequate housing, believe it or not, to actually get people to actually come and settle and create that stickiness so they’ll stay in our communities,” said Dr. Joanne Conroy, the CEO of DHMC.

The UVM Health Network recently invested in building housing in South Burlington specifically for hospital staff. But the network also faces the crippling costs of paying for traveling nurses due to an ongoing shortage across the country.

Click here to see the full conversation.

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