SAVE OUR CLINIC! — PEF VP Pat Baker, Region 11 Coordinator Jemma Marie Hanson and Division 252 Council Leader Larry Parker, left, lead a September rally to save Bushwick Resource Center in Brooklyn from closing. — Photos by Richard Dillard
PEF rallies to save Bushwick clinic
By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
PEF was joined in late September by state Sen. Eric Martin Dilan, New York City Council Member Tracey L. Boyland, local community activists and residents at a demonstration in front of the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn to protest the possible closing of one of the center’s outpatient clinics — Kingsboro Bushwick Resource Center.
The rally took place on the day NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) Executive Deputy Commissioner Barbara Cohn was touring the psychiatric center’s facilities.
“If the Bushwick clinic closes, hundreds of New Yorkers in Brooklyn and Queens who need long-term care and services from the center will face an enormous hardship,” said Pat Baker, vice president of PEF and a former employee of Kingsboro. “We cannot allow the state to compromise the welfare of our neediest New Yorkers tomorrow by closing the door to their well-being today.”
Neighborhood depends on it
For more than 30 years, the Kingsboro Bushwick Resource Center has provided access to vital services for hundreds of individuals and families, primarily in Bushwick, Brownsville and East New York, Brooklyn, and Ridgewood, Queens. Shutting the doors would mean services such as psychiatric and medical treatment, social services, skilled nursing care, individual and group therapy, and substance abuse treatment will be absent in the neighborhood.
OMH has confirmed the state’s plan to displace patients and workers within four months in favor of absorbing Bushwick into another clinic. The one-stop facility for health care and mental health services in Wingate primarily supports communities with large bilingual neighborhoods.
Without the familiarity and routine the Bushwick center offers, patients may be less than eager to take their medication, accept medical treatment or receive substance abuse counseling, said union representatives.
Closing plan courts disaster
“Eliminating access to critical services in these neighborhoods is wrong and goes against the very obligation of state-supplemented health care,” said Larry Parker, council leader of PEF Division 252 and a social worker at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center. “Denying access to critical services in this community is a recipe for disaster.”
The rally was organized by PEF Region 11 Coordinator Jemma Marie Hanson, a SUNY Downstate nurse, Baker and PEF members at
Bushwick.
Kingsboro Bushwick Resource Center serves approximately 200 patients and their families, and employs a dozen highly experienced and skilled mental health professionals. Employees of the Bushwick center have continuously kept many high-need patients out of the hospital and have integrated other patients into the community successfully.
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