Updated at 1:57 p.m. The University of Vermont Health Network on Thursday announced sweeping service cuts, including the closure of an inpatient mental health unit in Berlin and the elimination of dozens of beds at its Burlington hospital. Officials blamed the service reductions on recent regulatory decisions. Up to 200 jobs could be eliminated, network officials said, though roughly half of those positions are currently filled by temporary travel workers. Any permanent employees who are impacted will likely be offered comparable jobs elsewhere in the network. Stephen Leffler, the UVM Medical Center’s president and chief operating officer, told reporters Thursday morning that the “extremely difficult” decisions will make it harder for patients to access care. But with state regulators mandating that the hospital take in less revenue than it had hoped for next year, the network has no choice. “There's no way forward except decreasing the amount of care we deliver,” Leffler said. The announcement ratchets up a long-simmering tension between Vermont’s largest health care provider and its chief health care regulator, the Green Mountain Care Board, which has been attempting — unsuccessfully — to rein in hospital spending in response to an unsustainable growth in insurance premiums. [content-1] In a statement on Thursday, the care board said it was “deeply concerned” about how the network’s decision will impact patients, staff and the entire health care system. “The GMCB was not consulted on, and did not approve, these reductions,” the statement read. It added that regulators were reaching out to the network to better understand its rationale and what alternatives were considered. In October, regulators approved budgets for both the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin that the network says will force it to take in about $122 million less revenue than it had proposed. In response, the network announced plans to delay construction on a new outpatient surgical center and appealed the decisions, a process that could drag on for months. On Thursday, network officials said they must begin taking steps to comply with the regulators’ orders. They highlighted a handful of cuts that they say will curb the growth of their expenses and revenues. The network will consolidate some family medicine and rehab clinics at CVMC and eliminate surgical kidney transplants at UVMMC; the hospital performed about a dozen kidney transplants this year. A potential collaboration with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical…