Unions Lobby, But State Goes Forward with Closing Plans for Kingsboro Psychiatric Center
Advocates Say Service Is “Below Par”
By Lore Corghan New York Daily News February 3, 2012
It’s official: Despite unions’ campaigns to stop it, the state is moving forward with the closing of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, which a state advisory panel recommended.
“What about the poor, who are in need in Brooklyn?” said Darcy Wells, New York State Public Employees Federation spokeswoman. “This is about access to those most in need. They are basically abandoning these people.”
The state Office of Mental Health issued a public notice Tuesday of Kingsboro’s closing. The Flatbush hospital will be consolidated with South Beach Pyschiatric Center on Staten Island, it indicates.
But one advocacy group supports Kingsboro’s closing.
“The quality of service is below par, and the length of stay is too long,” said Wendy Brennan, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ metro New York chapter. “There is a lack of a recovery-oriented culture at Kingsboro.”
The median stay for patients is 183 days, compared with 79 days statewide. A Daily News report last year spotlighted patient violence and charges of two deaths due to delays in treatments.
The Brooklyn Health Systems Redesign Work Group, convened last year to study Brooklyn’s financially strapped hospitals, recommended the elimination of Kingsboro’s in-patient hospital services.
Kingsboro is the only facility in Brooklyn that handles long-term hospitalization for the mentally ill. The closing notice says Kingsboro’s and South Beach’s total number of beds will be reduced.
Union members have heard that just 150 beds will be added to South Beach, though Kingsboro’s 290 beds are mostly full, Wells said.
Patients from Central Brooklyn may refuse to go to the Staten Island hospital – a two-and-a-half hour trek by public transportation – and won’t get treatment they need, she added.
The unions were blindsided by the notice, which state law requires 60 days in advance of closings of hospitals the mental health agency operates.
The Public Employees Federation – which represents doctors, nurses, technicians and social workers at the 655-employee Clarkson Ave. facility – was busy lobbying Brooklyn’s state Senators and Assembly members prior to the closing announcement. Last week, 50 union members took buses to Albany to carry on the campaign. The union bought ads in local Brooklyn papers.
“Our concern is hundreds of people could be out of work,” Wells said.
The Civil Service Employees Association, which reps other Kingsboro workers, had been running a Facebook letter-writing campaign to legislators, staging big demonstrations and lobbying the Brooklyn delegation.
“This closing is something that should be decided by the Legislature,” civil service union spokesman David Galarza said. “It seems Gov. Cuomo is doing it by fiat.”
The union plans to stage a rally later this month to protest Kingsboro’s closing outside panel chairman Stephen Berger’s Manhattan investment banking office.
Galarza also defended workers’ efforts to improve care at the facility.
“We have a professional workforce there trained to do a difficult job,” he said. “It is a dangerous job.”