Staten Island Mental Ward Not Welcome

Outrage is a mild word for what was expressed by elected officials and community leaders at yesterday’s hastily called press conference in front of Borough Hall in Staten Island. They accused St. Vincent’s Medical Center of deceit in the proposal it submitted to the community to convert a St. George convent into a support residence for the mentally ill.A member of Congress, Vito Fossella; a state senator, Diane Savino; an assemblyman, Matthew Mirones, and the minority leader of the City Council, James Oddo, were among the speakers reacting to a set of documents uncovered last weekend by a St. George attorney, Dan Marotta, through the Freedom of Information Act.Last spring, officials of St. Vincent’s said they would be opening a 59-bed facility at 78 Fort Place for a population of stable mentally ill patients. A copy of the hospital’s proposal to the state Office of Mental Health indicated, however, that the target population of the facility would include individuals released from jail or prison, including a program at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility; individuals discharged directly from acute psychiatric units or hospitals, and individuals under the supervision of the Brooklyn Mental Health Court.Fort Place is in a residential neighborhood in St. George, an area undergoing a much-delayed renaissance. The site of the proposed facility is just two blocks from an elementary school, and there are two high schools in the area.When St. Vincent’s reached out to our elected officials, Ms. Savino said, it assured them the population of the facility would be 59 stable, somewhat independent mental patients, some of whom would be working. They sought the public officials’ support, she said, because “the taxpayers are going to be paying for this entire project.”That description of the proposed patient population is in stark contrast to what was proposed in the state documents. Ms. Savino said that when the community originally voiced its opposition to the proposal, it was accused of being, “biased, racist, and intolerant.”“You cannot look at Community Board 1 and make that charge,” she said, adding that the area covered by Board 1 already has 2,907 beds for supportive housing in similar programs.She then introduced Rep. Fossella, a Republican of Staten Island and Brooklyn, who had set aside his schedule for the day to attend the press conference. He stressed that he valued the decades of service by St. Vincent’s to the Staten Island community. In this situation, however, “Frankly, St. Vincent’s is wrong,” he said.The community has legitimate concerns about the proposed conversion of the convent into a facility for mental patients. The families of Fort Place typically have invested much of their life savings in their homes. Many of us, Mr. Fossella said, have been trying to balance ensuring that the community gets what it wants and seeing that St. Vincent’s adequately carries out its health care mission.“But right now, these documents … illustrate that St. Vincent’s, at a minimum, has been misleading, by omission, the questions and concerns that this community has had. It is one thing to serve those in need. It’s another not to be honest with the community and the elected officials who represent this community.”According to Ms. Savino, St. Vincent’s response to the state documents was that its proposal was a standard prototype and none of the patients in that document would be housed at the new facility. Thus, the only possible conclusion is that St. Vincent’s was either lying to the community or lying to the state.A South Shore assemblyman, Vito Ignizio, warned against future deceptive proposals when he said, “We stand here in unison, Republicans and Democrats alike, the people who represent from the city, the state, and the local government, to say we will not tolerate institutions that come to us and want to drop anchor here on Staten Island and potentially lie to the community and its elected officials alike.” The president of the St. George Civic Association, James Boivin, said that when he first opposed the facility, it was more a matter of the oversaturation of social agencies in the area. After learning what was actually proposed to the state, he said, “I wouldn’t wish this on any community.”Responding last night to my questions about the project, the medical center’s communications and planning spokeswoman, Bernadette Kingham-Bez, explained that whenever a project is publicly financed, the proposal must include criteria that may include segments of the population that are generally underserved. While St. Vincent’s may be required to screen those patients, they will not necessarily be admitted to the Fort Place facility, she said.“St. Vincent’s has always been concerned with the safety of our patients and the community that we serve,” she said, and she assured me that she would be following up in a dialogue with all interested parties. Now is the time for all good people to communicate.

Staten Island Mental Ward Not Welcome

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