When I parked inside the Allentown State Hospital campus at high noon yesterday, the first thing I noticed were the mounds of acorns that seemed to be scattered everywhere.Nuts!
I crunched along these shells, making my way to a small band of about twenty union workers, one of whom adorned her overcoat with a little groundhog doll in honor of Groundhog Day. They were nice people, and they were obviously concerned about losing their jobs. I expected that. But what I did not expect was that they really care about the residents at the state hospital, who are incapable of speaking for themselves.
State Representatives Doug Reichley and Steve Samuelson both spoke eloquently, and Reichley's remarks to me were posted here yesterday. Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski did drop by to express his hope that jobs could be saved.
Mike Baker, an Income Maintenance Caseworker at the Lehigh County Assistance Office ans Chairperson of SEIU Local 668 Chapter 13, organized yesterday's rally, and had this to say.
We are employees of Allentown State Hospital (ASH), providing intensive inpatient mental heath services to residents of Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, Carbon and Pike counties. We are the proud members of SEIU Local 668, AFSCME and other union and employee organizations. We are state legislators and local officials concerned about patients and workers of the hospital.
We are protesting the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare's decision to close ASH effective Dec. 31, 2010. On Sept. 25, 2009, the state gave SEIU Local 668 a 30-day notice of possible furloughs. In October of 2009, DPW was asked by State Representative Mario Civera whether it was true that the hospital was being closed and shortly thereafter The Morning Call ran a story on the state's announced plan to close ASH. DPW responded there were no plans to do so at that time. When repeatedly asked about a possible closing, DPW continued to say the same thing. On Dec. 17, 2009, several state legislators wrote DPW Secretary of Welfare Estelle Richman asking to meet with her or a representative from her office over the reduction in patient population to 115 patients. Richman and DPW never responded to the request until early Thursday morning, Jan. 28, 2010, when acting Secretary of Welfare Harriet Dichter asked to meet with the legislators to inform them of the closing. That same morning, I received phonecalls from hospital workers and SEIU Local 668 President Kathy Jellison telling me DPW was closing the hospital and asking me to attend a meeting at the hospital that day the state was having with union stewards at the hospital. So after months of being asked by unions and state representatives whether the hospital was being closed, the state gave two hours notice of a meeting to announce the closing! Even though hospital workers and the unions suspected DPW would close the hospital, the fact that it gave such short notice of the closing proved that DPW had been planning the closing for a long time.
DPW has announced that it will be holding a public hearing from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 22, 2010, at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel & Suites, 3400 Airport Rd., Allentown, to accept comment about the closure from stakeholders, officials and the community, with those wishing to provide comments asked to register by contacting Beth Neston at (610) 740-3409. DPW should have held public hearings before making the decision to close the hospital! We urge the public, patients, families of patients and other interested parties to attend the hearing and make known any objections to the hospital's closing. Right now there are few community facilities with slots available to handle patients who are not being transferred to Wernersville State Hospital (WSH). Even if there were, these facilities don't have the worker stability ASH has due to lower pay and benefits, which are issues the state and community facilities need to address. Make no mistake about it, the closing of ASH is not so much a move by the state because of its “commitment to reducing its reliance on institutional care and improving access to home and community-based services for Pennsylvanians living with mental illness” or to reintegrate patients into communities as desired by several mental health organizations as it is to primarily save money. It remains to be seen if the $35.3 million/year allocated for ASH will “follow the patient.” The state's intention to place workers into other state jobs is an attempt, not a promise, and will be difficult in light of state worker layoffs in 2009.
ASH has been underutilized and currently has a patient waiting list due to not having more staff. Community facilities that DPW wants to place ASH patients in currently also have waiting lists. If the state goes through with closing ASH and transfers 65 patients to WSH, the families of those patients will have to drive 90 or more minutes to visit them. In the future, if ASH closes, and patients need to be admitted to a state hospital, patients from Lehigh and Northampton counties will be admitted to WSH and patients from Carbon, Monroe and Pike counties will be admitted to Clarks Summit State Hospital. How often will their family and friends be able to visit them then?
SEIU Local 668 understands the reluctance of state legislators to raise taxes and accordingly has provided examples of wasteful spending and ways to streamline state government that could save the state more than $1 billion per year, which would have gone a long way to help solve the 2009 state budget crisis and help in balancing future state budgets. These were provided to the Governor and to the House Appropriations Committee by testimony of 668 officers and through the lobbying of 668 members in 2009. We urge the Governor and state legislators to implement these suggestions and fairly fund social services in the state budget and not close ASH, as well as work to further extend Unemployment Compensation benefits and implement other revenue sources such as closing tax loopholes that allow out-of-state businesses to operate in Pennsylvania without paying taxes.
Contact SEIU Local 668 President Kathy Jellison, who was a social worker at Torrance State Hospital for many years, at 1-800-932-0368 with questions or for further comments.
For more information on 668’s examples of wasteful state spending and ways to streamline state government that would save more than $1billion/year, please go to www.seiu668.org.
Did any of the Counties officials attend the rally?
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeletePawlowski while Director of Community and Economic Development called state officials soliciting support for giving state hospital land to the City.
ReplyDeleteStanding with Union members it shows he is a hypocrite and public service unions people are very dumb.
Hasn't Mayor Pawlowski spoken in favor of the redevelopment of this site, one of the few open spaces left in a tax-worried city?
ReplyDeletePawlowski while Director of Community and Economic Development called state officials soliciting support for giving state hospital land to the City.
ReplyDeleteStanding with Union members it shows he is a hypocrite and public service unions people are very dumb.
3:30 AM
Sadly, we must agree. He should have stayed away.
100 acres of land could be developed without going near any State hospital building.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to prove the Mayor is not being sincere you will need more than that.
Like the mayor, I would want the land developed and the local jobs to remain.
Nothing new with the state when it comes to closing something at the last minute.
ReplyDeleteIn 1996, Gov. Ridge decided he was going to close all the public health office without any follow up plans and never told any staff until he annouced it during his budget speech. After much protest and meetings with and bills passed by Legislatures, the offices remained open, but with a fraction of the staff it had in 1996. And the public health division still remains to this day a shell of its former self.
My gut is telling me that somehow this facility will remain open, which is a good thing for all involved.
ReplyDeleteRid the Queen City Airport and develop that land, is my opinion...
Bernie, I will qualify my remarks here as merely incidental.
ReplyDeleteWhile working at AP, I was a member of the Activities Committee. Annually, a few weeks before the Christmas, the committee as a whole would visit this hospital with our truckload of wrapped gifts from Operation Santa Claus; gifts that were purchased (by AP employees) in direct response to the written requests of the actual folks receiving them (at the facility). We're talking lots of gifts here!
When we'd show up, we would be directed to drop off the gifts .. at some designated spot. One year, it was in one of the long large buildings along the left side of that horseshoe driveway; a building that was obviously no longer in active service. But when we walked in there, I'll never forget what struck me. The dated appearance/architecture/decor of the place tweaked the nostalgic part of me - even while looking at the paint/(plaster?) chips that were littering the dingy hallways and rooms. But what really struck me what that the place was so overheated!! And I thought, my Gawd, we taxpayers are paying to keep this place habitable and for whom??? It was obvious that the place hadn't been used in some time (years?) and - if memory serves me correctly - there were radiators in there - which means that they were never drained therefore necessitating the continual need to keep the heat running to prevent pipes breaking in the dead of winter.
It just didn't seem to be a good use of (scarce/limited) taxpayer monies to heat an unused facility. Knowing that the residency of that hospital is only a fraction of what it could be, I wonder how many other buildings are being kept alive this way.
Now, the issue of whether this facility should be kept open is a different issue than I'm addressing here, but if we're really not gonna use it, there's no use throwing good (read:scarce/limited) money after bad.
Just another example of public sector waste at taxpayer expense. If we're gonna use it, then fill it with patients; if we're not, then close it down.
Looking at an aerial shot of this place, I now see how HUGE it is - and it's serving so few patients :-(
I think your points are wll made and that the services offered should be confined to one area so that the rest of the grounds can be used for something else.
ReplyDeleteThey should concentrate the current services into something efficient and maintain the current residents someway that makes sense to the buildings and campus.
ReplyDeleteAs to the rest of the facility, right now, when they admit someone with mental health issues into any of the Valley hospitals, the person hangs out in the ER until they find a bed for them in a hospital's mental health ward in the area (which can mean quite far away). Hospitals have less and less of these beds, and they just generally pop the person back out after 72 hours because they need the bed. Nothing is addressed or solved. Why not concentrate all of that into one facility where they might be able to actually help the individual, give the beds back to the hospitals to use for patients with physical ailments, and have services in one central location devoted to actually helping folks rather than just holding and releasing them all over the place without real solutions?
Associated groups to these sevices would be able to have administrative offices there as well.