SPEAKING OUT FOR SANITY — PEF Region 9 Coordinator Neila Cardus draw cheers from the audience for their comments about the quality of care delivered daily by the 125-year-old facility. They were among a dozen mental-health advocates taking part in the union-sponsored March Speak Out against the proposed closing of MPC.
‘Speak Out’ aims to save treatment options
Union, community lift voices to keep Middletown PC open
Story and Photos By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
Dozens of PEF members who work at Middletown Psychiatric Center joined their co-workers, union leaders, former patients, community activists and state lawmakers at a “Speak Out” event in late March, to keep pressure on the state Legislature to keep the facility open to the public.
Though legislative leaders had indicated they would likely reject the governor’s budget proposal to close MPC and Hutchings Psychiatric Center in Syracuse, union leaders and other supporters are taking no chances until the state budget is adopted.
The Middletown Speak Out event featured testimonials from union members and leaders and other mental-health advocates about why the top-rated psychiatric center should stay open.
No replacing quality care
“As good as they are, the local hospitals in Orange and Sullivan counties could never fill the void that would be created if Middletown Psychiatric Center closes its doors,” said PEF President Roger Benson.
“We must not allow the state Office of Mental Health to shirk its responsibility to keep all treatment options open to anyone trying to recover from mental illness,” Benson said.
Gov. George Pataki proposed closing Middletown Psychiatric Center as well as the Hutchings Psychiatric Center and reinvesting the money saved from the closings into staff pay raises at private-sector mental-health programs. But if the Legislature fails to block the closures, Middletown’s patients and their families would be forced to seek long-term treatment 60 miles away at Rockland Psychiatric Center.
“Our members are determined to stop the state from trying to trade high-quality therapeutic services for the mentally ill for the sake of some imagined cost savings,” PEF Regional Coordinator Neila Cardus told the audience and local TV news crews.
“Ultimately, it will cost the state more to try to replicate at Rockland PC the services MPC delivers, and it would harm patients, families and workers in the process,” she said.
Expand, don’t cut care
Other speakers noted that MPC is a leader in mental-health treatment, recently earning a 97 percent rating from the federal Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.
“I am proud to be a caregiver associated with a facility that is a role model for treatment of the mentally ill,” said Cindy Bartley-Horn, a community mental health nurse and the PEF council leader for union members at Middletown PC. “Our state government should be expanding the kind of care MPC provides, not cutting it back.”
Other speakers at the event included PEF
members and MPC employees Dr. Doug Sanders, a
psychologist, and Martha Jean Hunter, a recreation
therapist. Hunter drew applause when she vowed to retire
from state service rather than be forced to make the
120-mile commute to and from Rockland PC. They were joined at the podium by Danny Donohue, president of the state Civil Service Employees Association, Helen Swanwick, president of the Middletown Board of Visitors, and Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, a former MPC patient, among others.
They warned that closing Middletown would make it difficult for families of mentally ill patients to make frequent visits — an essential part of the recovery process.