Local News

Regional Report: Bennington Hospital Plans New Rooms For Mental Health Crisis

Vermont Public | By Melody Bodette,

Published February 7, 2014 at 7:53 AM EST

The Emergency Room at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington has been seeing an overflow of a mental health patients waiting for treatment. The problem has gotten so bad that the hospital is going to renovate to accommodate the extra population.

The problem isn’t unique to Bennington, but the hospitals response may be indicative of what other towns and cities in Vermont have to do as the crisis worsens.

VPR's Mitch Wertlieb spoke with Bennington Banner reporter Keith Whitcomb, Jr. for our Friday Regional Report.

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Melody Bodette

Melody is the Contributing Editor for But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids and the co-author of two But Why books with Jane Lindholm.

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Mitch Wertlieb

A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.

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