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Harrisburg State Hospital Closing
Rendell wants State Hospital Closed
Move would affect 539 jobs
Thursday, December 23, 2004
BY JAN MURPHY
Of The Patriot-News
Gov. Ed Rendell's administration has set its sights
on closing Harrisburg State Hospital.
The decision is not final, administration officials said, but comments
in a closed-door meeting at the Capitol yesterday led some attendees
to believe the closing is imminent. An announcement is expected
Jan. 6 and the hospital could be shuttered in nine months to a year.
Harrisburg Hospital, the oldest of Pennsylvania's state hospitals,
which treat the mentally ill, has about 260 patients and 539 employees.
A closure could force some patients to be moved to state hospitals
more than an hour's drive away, said Joan Erney, deputy secretary
for the Department of Public Welfare's Office of Mental Health and
Substance Abuse Services. Some employees would lose their jobs,
Erney said.
But it would enable some patients to return to their communities
and get the services they need there, she said.
The state is also proposing the closure of a mental retardation
center in Altoona that has 90 residents and nearly 200 employees.
Erney and staffers from Rendell's office met with midstate lawmakers
yesterday to notify them of the proposal.
"We had a look at all the hospitals, and if we are able to
close one of them, it would be Harrisburg," Erney said.
Driving the decision to close the Susquehanna Twp. facility is a
state and national trend, prompted by a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court
decision to move people out of institutions and into communities,
Erney said.
"For us to do this initiative actually does cost us money,"
she said.
Money spent on state hospitals follows patients into their communities
to provide them with services and treatment, she said.
The process requires staff, patients and patients' families to be
notified, Erney said.
This is followed by a public hearing, which is tentatively scheduled
in Harrisburg for mid-January.
"If sufficient concerns are raised, it would be our obligation
to look seriously at those issues and look at whether the decision
still should and can be made," she said.
Erney said many of the employees could go to work at another state
hospital or elsewhere in state government.
Stacey Sawyer, a 34-year-old psychiatric aide from Beaver Springs,
said that after another facility closed six years ago, she accepted
a transfer to Harrisburg -- and the one-hour commute each way --
because the pay and benefits would be hard to match in the private
sector.
"I'm worried about it," she said. "I don't want to
lose my job."
Judi Heh, director of District Council 90 of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about
300 of the hospital's workers, said she is concerned about how a
closure would affect her members, who after 20 years typically earn
about $17 per hour.
Erney said about 135 of the patients are expected to move into communities.
The rest would move to the two nearest state hospitals -- Danville
in Montour County or Wernersville in Berks County, Erney said.
Either would be a problem for Sharon Heath of Lower Paxton Twp.,
whose 65-year-old mother has been a patient at the state hospital
off and on for about 40 years. "I get my mom [out of the hospital]
a lot," she said. "I couldn't have her that far away."
Heath said all of her family members work and they couldn't afford
a visiting nurse for her mother, who requires round-the-clock care.
Mental health advocates cautioned people not to panic. They said
the money supporting the people in the institution must follow them
into the community.
"If it's done right, it can be a good thing," said Ilene
Shane, director of the Pennsylvania Protection and Advocacy, a Harrisburg
advocacy group for people with disabilities.
Midstate legislators are concerned about job losses and want assurances
that counties would be reimbursed for costs incurred from having
patients relocated to community-based settings.
"I want to ensure that patients who can go into community settings
are put in communities from which they came," said Rep. Ronald
Buxton, D-Harrisburg. "I don't want them all ending up in the
city of Harrisburg."
State Rep. Ronald Marsico, R-Lower Paxton Twp., said, "This
whole thing seems to be on a real fast pace. There's lots of questions,
lots of concerns."
Advocates said people were not meant to live in institutions for
10 or 20 years. But treatment has not been available in communities.
"When you transfer the money into the community, you are not
just able to provide service for the person coming out of the hospital,
you are able to provide that service to other folks who live in
the community and will live in the community five years from now,"
said Sue Walther, executive director of the Mental Health Association
in Pennsylvania.
The advocates said that if Harrisburg State Hospital closes, they'll
monitor the process closely.
Pennsylvania has experience in closing facilities Shane said. Eleven
of the 20 state hospitals it operated 25 years ago have been closed.
"They know how to do it and know how to do it right, but their
feet needs to be held to the fire, and in tight budget times we
have to make sure it's not done on the cheap," Shane said.
Staff writer Charles Thompson contributed to this article. JAN MURPHY:
232-0668 or jmurphy@patriot-news.com
Copyright 2004 PennLive.com.
All Rights Reserved.
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