BY TODD MAISEL
Members of the state’s nurses
union are calling on New York-
Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist
Hospital to restore two
psychiatric facilities that were
closed during the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The New York State Nurses
Association say the two wards,
which hold about 50 patients,
continue to go unused and
empty, eliminating inpatient
mental healthcare for hundreds
of patients over the eight-month
period. On Nov. 16, the union
was joined outside the hospital
on Seventh Avenue in Park
Slope by community members,
elected offi cials, patients and
their families — all of whom
called to reopen the units without
delay.
Proponents of restoring the
psychiatric facilities say the
pandemic has exacerbated the
city’s mental health crisis, and
that more people need access
to mental health services than
ever before. Healthcare workers
COURIER L 6 IFE, NOV. 20-26, 2020
at the rally alleged that
some psychiatric patients have
waited days in the Methodist
Hospital emergency room before
being transported to facilities
outside the city, while
others have been admitted to
Methodist surgery fl oors where
they cannot receive the specialized
care that they need.
Leaders further contended
that the tensions caused by lack
of access have led to assaults on
hospital staff.
“With 50 beds closed, it’s
created an unsafe environment,”
said Irving Campbell,
a psychiatric nurse at Methodist
Hospital. “We’re hearing
about increased attacks on
our fellow colleagues, ER wait
times to transfer the behavioral
health patients has increased
and we’re seeing them
on our non-behavioral health
units. Simply put: New York-
Presbyterian has ignored the
people of Park Slope and the
neighboring communities and
the community demands that
the unit be reopened.”
Councilman Brad Lander
said he and other elected offi -
cials back the hospital’s efforts
to build new hospital buildings,
even in the face of some
neighborhood opposition. The
hospital needs that same support,
he said, to reopen the two
wards in question.
“My sister-in-law is a psychiatric
nurse and talks to me
every day about what she is seeing
– the need for those services
is so clear,” Lander said. “All
you have to do is walk around
the streets of Brooklyn to see
how much mental health need
there is. We even feel it in ourselves
the level of anxiety and
disorder that we are all feeling.
You know the need for these
psychiatric beds is powerful. It
is appalling for NYP to reduce
these services in the cover of a
pandemic and reduce mental
health services.”
Assemblywoman Joanne Simon
echoed Lander in saying
there are “not enough psychiatric
Nurses and local leaders are demanding a reopening of two psychiatric
wards at New York-Presbyterian Methodist Hospital. Photo by Todd Maisel
beds to begin with.”
“We talked about the numbers
of people incarcerated because
they have mental health
illness and we didn’t provide
them with the mental health
services in the fi rst place so
our state prison system has
become the chief provider of
mental health services,” Simon
said. “There is something very
wrong with that picture.”
Leaders also took Mayor
Bill de Blasio, his wife Chirlane
McCray and the Department
of Health to task at the
rally, claiming they have not
done enough to increase mental
healthcare in the city, and
that they have stayed silent on
the reopening of the psychiatric
beds at Methodist.
In a statement issued after
the rally, a spokesperson
for Methodist Hospital said
the closure of the wards was
necessary to combat the rise
in patients battling COVID-19
since the start of the outbreak
in the spring.
“Our commitment to behavioral
health is unwavering
and we very much understand
the desire to know when inpatient
beds at certain hospitals
will return. At this time, we are
fi nalizing a plan with regulatory
agencies to reopen behavioral
health beds across the network,”
the statement read.
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Nurses, pols rally for psychiatric services at Methodist
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