Brooklyn Deserves Better Than This!

BROOKLYN, NY (03/08/2012)(readMedia)-- Hundreds of state employees at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center and SUNY's Downstate University Hospital of Brooklyn poured out of those state hospitals on Clarkson Avenue today to protest plans to eliminate the psychiatric center and relocate the hospital's inpatient services out of central Brooklyn.

The employees, who are members of the NY State Public Employees Federation (PEF), United University Professions (UUP) and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), rallied and marched down Clarkson Avenue in Brooklyn from Downstate University Hospital to Kingsboro Psychiatric Center.

"The state wants to close Kingsboro Psychiatric Center and also shift inpatient hospital services from SUNY Downstate's University Hospital to Long Island College Hospital," said PEF Vice President Pat Baker. "That's totally unfair to the people of Brooklyn. Downstate University Hospital and Kingsboro are here on Clarkson Avenue, where people need them and have depended on them for decades. This is the state's most populous county and it deserves to have the services it needs, right here, where it needs them."

Baker was joined by PEF council leaders Donald Morgenstern of SUNY Downstate and Jasmine Wilson-LaFond of Kingsboro. PEF represents nurses and other professional, scientific and technical employees at both facilities.

"These state facilities must provide treatment to everyone, whether they have insurance or not and whether they can pay or not," Baker said. "The people in this community may be forced to travel an hour to get these services in the future, if they can get them at all."

Other speakers included CSEA Metropolitan Region President Lester Crockett and UUP Treasurer Rowena Blackman-Stroud, who questioned why state leaders were relying on the advice of investment banker Stephen Berger in deciding to eliminate and relocate services in Brooklyn.

"We are here to stand up for the thousands of Brooklyn residents who rely on University Hospital of Brooklyn for quality, inpatient and outpatient services close to their homes," said Blackman-Stroud. "If the hospital services are transferred to Long Island College Hospital their health care will suffer. Patients with critical illnesses and life-threatening injuries should not be forced to travel an hour or more away from their neighborhood and wait longer to receive medical care."

"At a time when we should be improving the quality of health and mental health care our communities need and deserve, these draconian decisions will only serve to inflict more pain and suffering," Crockett said. "The workers at SUNY Downstate and Kingsboro are also members of this vibrant community, a community that will be devastated if Kingsboro is closed and SUNY loses its inpatient facilities."

Fitzroy Wilson, the CSEA president at Kingsboro, warned "this proposal shows a gross lack of respect and understanding for communities of color who receive culturally competent care from professionals at these facilities they have grown to trust over the years. These decisions cannot be made with a calculator. They must be made with compassion."

For more information, contact PEF spokesperson Sherry Halbrook at 800-342-4306, ext. 271 or at 518-396-8201. Or you may contact UUP Director of Communications Denyce Duncan Lacy at 518-640-6600, ext. 612, or CSEA spokesperson David Galarza at 212-406-2156.