#Nurse says ThriveNYC ignored pleas for help with psych-wards
“#Nurse says ThriveNYC ignored pleas for help with psych-wards”
Irving Campbell, a psychiatric nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist, told The Post he watched his 50-bed ward close in March to treat people with COVID-19 — leaving at least some of the hospital’s former mental patients on the street, rooting around in the trash nearby.
“My intention of reaching out was to get the support of the mayor and first lady in keeping these inpatient psychiatric beds available to the community,’’ Campbell wrote in an e-mail to a counselor with McCray’s embattled $1.25 billion mental-health group ThriveNYC in late July.
The counselor blew him off.
“I am unable to provide you with a way that you can speak directly with the Mayor or Ms. McCray,” the counselor wrote — although she suggested Campbell “continue to speak out about a need you see in your community,” according to a copy of their exchange.
Campbell then tried to reach ThriveNYC on social media and sent a letter to the mayor but got no response.
New York has lost 400 psych beds to coronavirus patients in private hospitals statewide since the pandemic broke out.
About 100 of those beds were in New York City. They included the 50 spaces at Campbell’s hospital, as well as 34 at Presbyterian’s Allen Pavilion in Upper Manhattan and 20 at Northwell Health’s Syosset Hospital on Long Island.
Campbell, who is active with the New York State Nurses Association, said that while state hospitalizations for the virus have plummeted, his unit has yet to reopen — and his union suspects this is because the hospital’s mental-health patients were largely poor, and other health-care issues generate as much as 70 times their related payments.
City Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), who represents the Park Slope neighborhood where Brooklyn Methodist is located, told The Post, “It looks to me like mental-health care for New Yorkers is being severely cut right when we need it more urgently than ever before.’’
Referring to the presence of the mentally ill on city streets and subways, he added, “Everyone can see it right now.
“I think everyone can feel it right now.”
Campbell blamed ThriveNYC for not stepping up to the plate to help more.
Matthew Shapiro of the New York branch of the National Alliance for Mental Illness agreed — telling The Post that his network’s suicide hot line has been flooded with calls, while ThriveNYC has been missing in action.
An NYPD source said he fears that the lack of care could result in an incident such as the recent fatal police shooting of a knife-wielding man with psychiatric problems in Philadelphia.
“Now there’s no place to take them,’’ the source said of some of the city’s mentally ill. “They’re not stable enough to be in jail, and the hospitals don’t want them.’’
Reps for City Hall did not return requests for comment.
Nicole Torres, a spokeswoman for ThriveNYC, said her organization has several programs to close the gaps for New Yorkers experiencing mental illness, especially the homeless.
She cited clinical, intensive mobile treatment that helps vagrants find permanent housing, a program for formerly incarcerated people, and onsite mental-health clinicians at more than 100 shelters.
Reps for the private hosps and the state insisted the psych-bed closures are only temporary.
Dominique Grignette, a spokeswoman for Presbyterian, told The Post, “To create critically needed ICU capacity to respond to the massive surge in COVID-19 patients, it was necessary to transfer psychiatric patients within NewYork-Presbyterian.
“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 finalizing a plan with regulatory agencies to reopen behavioral health beds across the network, while remaining prepared and flexible for another possible surge of COVID-19.’’
A rep for Northwell did not respond to a request for comment.
Officials with the state’s Department of Health and Office of Mental Health insisted there is still plenty of room within the system to serve the mentally ill.
“The fact is there is currently no requirement that hospitals keep 30 percent of their beds open, no shortage of psych beds, no one was denied a bed because of a lack of capacity, and all individuals with psychiatric needs continue to be served,” said DOH spokesman Gary Holmes.
Meanwhile, Campbell said, “I am available if anyone from the mayor’s office or the mayor himself wants to speak about the issue.’’
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan and Tina Moore
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