The state Office of Mental Health on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping plan to consolidate and reduce the number of state-run psychiatric hospitals from 24 to 15 over the next three years.
“The time has come to fundamentally change the way we think about mental health in New York state,” OMH Acting Commissioner Kristin Woodlock said in releasing the plan.
By the time it’s concluded, though, New Yorkers with mental illnesses will be far less likely to be treated at a large state hospital. Instead, they’ll seek help from one of the 15 regional centers or reside in a local community-based facility.
Mental health officials note that New York, with a population of roughly 19 million, may be the nation’s sole holdout in terms of how many psychiatric hospitals it maintains. California, with approximately 38 million residents, has five such centers.
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Under the “Regional Centers of Excellence” plan, large facilities such as those near Middletown, Elmira and Ogdensburg will close or merge, but hospitals including Albany’s Capital District Psychiatric Center will expand to absorb clients from the closed sites.
CDPC also will serve as a regional hub offering a wider array of services and coordinating with smaller residential facilities.
Disclosure of the overhaul, which has been months in the making, was welcomed by those who provide mental health services, although they cautioned that they will be watching to ensure the savings go back into community services.
“Our organizations welcome these proposals,” read a statement issued by seven organizations that provide non-hospital services such as treatment and housing to those with mental illness.
The groups “want to ensure that a significant portion of state savings from staff attrition and facility closures is reinvested into local communities to boost nonprofit services.”
“I think this is really bold,” added Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the state Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services and one of the letter’s signatories.
He noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration appears to be trying to avoid conflict with politically powerful unions like the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation by offering assurances that the closures won’t lead to layoffs except through attrition.
As part of “ensuring continuity of employment,” OMH says it will redeploy unionized hospital employees to work in outpatient centers. The agency will also offer transfers to other state agencies and retraining as needed.
The Cuomo administration and its predecessors have for several years been downsizing the once-vast upstate system of adult and youth prisons. That scheme, however, has been met with resistance from lawmakers whose communities rely on the prisons for jobs.
At least one influential state senator was already speaking out against the OMH plan: Binghamton’s Tom Libous, the chamber’s Republican deputy leader, said the decision to close facilities in Binghamton and Elmira “destroys services in the Southern Tier.”
Unions also remained wary, noting the plan, which won’t begin in earnest for a year, is short on details about precisely where people leaving the existing centers will go, and how local communities will absorb and pay for them.
“Once again, the Cuomo administration is purposely misleading the public about the impact of his policies by packaging his proposal with a nice-sounding name without providing any real detail about how services will be provided or supported,” CSEA President Danny Donohue said in a statement.
CSEA represents about 5,000 workers in OMH facilities.
Many workers are underutilized due to a steady decline in the number of people who live in psychiatric hospitals.
The trend is seen as the result of advances in treatment and medication, and the decades-old mandate against needlessly confining people with mental illnesses.
Date: July 10, 2013