| 3.27.03
Coalition
to Save Worcester State Hospital
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[Download
a copy of the petition for distribution in your community]
 A
campaign has been launched to save Worcester State Hospital. Yesterday,
representatives of the Massachusetts Nurses Association joined State
Representative Vincent A. Pedone (D-Worcester), who hosted a rally and
press conference to announce the formation of the Coalition to Save
Worcester State Hospital, an alliance of citizens, community members,
family members of patients of Worcester State Hospital, nurses, allied
health professionals and employees of the hospital, local, state and
federal political leaders, mental health advocates (including the Massachusetts
Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally ill), and labor and
community groups. The coalition is fighting to preserve the vital and
comprehensive mental health services Worcester State Hospital provides
to patients and families struggling to manage the most acute and debilitating
forms of mental illness.
At the event, Rep, Pedone announced that he would be introducing an
amendment to the state budget to prevent the closing of the facility,
which is the oldest and most respected psychiatric hospitals in the
nation. In addition to announcing the filing of the amendment to save
the hospital, the coalition also used the event to launch a petition
drive throughout the state to gather signatures in support of the campaign.
Worcester State Hospital is a state of the art facility providing services
to patients from throughout Central Mass. and from as far away as the
New York border.
[Download
a copy of the petition for distribution in your community]
Below is from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette about the press conference.
WSH
supporters rally against closing
200 protest WSH closing
Lee
Hammel
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
About 200 union
members, patients' family members and other advocates gathered at Worcester
State Hospital yesterday to denounce the governor's proposal to close
the nation's first state hospital for people with mental illness.
The rally gathered
steam and enthusiasm as state Rep. Vincent A. Pedone, D-Worcester, announced
he will file an amendment to the state budget today that would prevent
closing the 430-employee hospital until the administration reports to
the state Legislature on how it will provide alternative services to
the hospital's patients.
Mr. Pedone said
similar amendments were filed in 1995 and 1996 when the Weld administration
tried and failed to close the state hospital.
The
crowd, forming the nucleus of "The Coalition to Save Worcester
State Hospital," cheered loudly when Carole J. Deneault, president
of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
Local 137, said, "The place will never close, and shame on
anyone who tries to do it."
Noting
that the administration said it will take most of next year to close
Worcester State Hospital, Mr. Pedone said that means the $13 million
the administration says would be saved in next year's budget through
closing Worcester State Hospital will not be there. "It's a
farce," Mr. Pedone, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee,
said of Gov. Romney's budget proposal.
"And
it says that you in the mental health community are not a priority,"
he said.
State Sen.
Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester - the only other legislator present
for the press conference that was held outdoors on WSH grounds while
the Legislature was in session in Boston - added, "We stopped it
in the '90s. We will stop it in 2003."
The state Department
of Mental Health said that it will spend $2.5 million placing the 50
Worcester State Hospital patients it said are ready to live in the community,
with the remainder of the hospital's 156 patients transferred to Westboro
State Hospital or Tewksbury State Hospital.
While a
hospital employee nearby displayed a sign saying, "Gov. Romney,
Where Are the Community Homes?" Mrs. Chandler referred to the patients
to be discharged and asked "Where will they go?" She noted
the difficulty in getting group homes sited in neighborhoods.
Mrs. Chandler
said the governor is "long on ideas. I would love to hear the details."
Joseph Bisceglia,
an aide to U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, said that more than $10 million
has been sunk into Worcester State Hospital's infrastructure in just
the past two years.
Sandy Ellis, a registered
nurse in the St. Vincent Hospital acute psychiatric ward, said there
already are 15 people on a waiting list to get into Worcester State
Hospital, and some of them have to wait as long as five months to get
in. The system becomes clogged as people cannot leave the St. Vincent
acute wards for the Worcester State Hospital wards they need, and that
results in patients waiting in emergency rooms for the psychiatric service
they need, said Ms. Ellis, who is a board member of the Massachusetts
Nurses Association.
"These
are not throw-away people," she said. If the state lacks resources
for them "we, all of us, need to give permission to our legislators
to increase revenue," she said, and Mr. Pedone echoed it.
Anthony
G. Terry, a Worcester State Hospital registered nurse, said he has "seen
many financial cuts in mental health funding, even during times of great
economic growth." Two or three months ago the hospital completed
the closing of a 20-bed ward and "we've had extreme difficulty
in discharging patients to the community because of lack of resources"
there.
While the Department
of Mental Health is adamant that it will not discharge patients to a
homeless shelter, he said its policies encourage hospitals with acute
psychiatric wards such as UMass Memorial Medical Center and St. Vincent
to do that. When acute hospitals keep psychiatric patients while awaiting
chronic-care beds in Worcester State Hospital, that stay is not paid
for by insurance.
"So
the patients end up getting sent back where they came from, if that's
even an option. Otherwise they are discharged to a homeless shelter,"
he said, and can pose "extreme risks to themselves and others"
because of decisions driven for financial rather than clinical reasons,
Mr. Terry said.
That will
be exacerbated with the disappearance of Worcester State Hospital beds,
he said. Jo-Ellen M. Stone of Worcester, who has been hospitalized three
times with mental illness, pleaded, "We can be productive. But
we might need help."
If Mr.
Romney succeeds in closing the hospital, said Dr. Anthony Buonomo, hospital
trustees president and father of a patient there, "we in a few
years will be asking ourselves why and how did we allow you to be successful."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
[Download
a copy of the petition for distribution in your community]
[Attend
a Candlelight Vigil April 23rd, 7-8 pm]
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a PDF flyer of the vigil for distribution in your community]
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