SICK OF IT - Members of PEF and CSEA protest state mental-health short staffing, dangerous conditions and pressure to discharge patients at a May demonstration in front of Capital District Psychiatric Center in Albany. - Photo by Sherry Halbrook
Members at CDPC protest:
'OMH is going to the dogs!'
By Sherry Halbrook
Management pressure to push mental-health patients out of state institutions pushed the hot buttons of staff at Capital District Psychiatric Center in Albany.
A combination of understaffing and relentless pressure from state Office of Mental Health top management to keep pushing and shutting patients out of state psychiatric centers and back into their communities, ready or not, pushed PEF members and their co-workers at CDPC right out onto the street in protest in May.
"Mental-health care is going to the dogs!" approximately 50 protesters told supportive passersby on Albany's busy New Scotland Avenue. Many motorists honked in vigorous support of the protesters, some of them carrying placards saying "Remember Judi!" in reference to PEF member Scanlon, who was murdered during a home-visit to a mental patient in Buffalo last November.
"Our members, especially the
nurses, feel very strongly about the erosion to quality patient
care," said PEF Division 231 Council Leader Chris Brady.
"People came on their lunch hours from their worksites in
Schenectady to protest, and some even came in on their day
off."They were joined by CDPC staff from other unions and sympathetic PEF members from other agencies, including the state Labor, Transportation and Health Departments.Brady's husband and her dog showed up too. It sported a doggy-size placard with the message "OMH is going to the dogs," what else?