Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) announced their proposal to close the child and adolescent and adult inpatient unit at the Greater Binghamton Health Center (GBHC) in hopes of creating a centralized “Regional Center of Excellence” (RCE). The “Empire Upstate RCE”, as it is proposed to be called, will be located in the Syracuse and Utica areas, respectively, and would provide both inpatient and outpatient services to residents ranging from the Southern Tier and extending north through the Adirondacks. However, with inpatient services at GBHC proposed for closure, the plan to provide only outpatient and other services to patients in the Southern Tier is simply not enough.
The closure of inpatient services at the GBHC facility is troubling news for the Greater Binghamton area patients, their families and the specialized work force infrastructure that has been built. According to this proposal, patients and families would have to travel to Syracuse or Utica for vital inpatient services with no clear proposed plan for the area’s workforce. This amounts to loss of patient services and jobs – a situation we cannot afford in the Southern Tier.
This facility has provided services to Broome County and surrounding counties for years. Any plan which requires patients and their families to travel great distances when GBHC has had an outstanding ranking as being one of the most innovative, high-quality and cost-effective centers in the state does not hold muster.
In order to keep the GBHC inpatient services open, I pledge my support to work against the OMH proposal, but work together with the governor and OMH to come up with a viable alternative that would mutually benefit all affected New Yorkers in the proposed “Empire Upstate RCE” area. To be clear, this is not a finalized plan, as the governor must seek legislative approval of funding before this plan can be implemented. In the meantime, I would encourage area residents to sign the following petition, http://bit.ly/15ZedQW, to raise awareness and to keep the GBHC inpatient services open and fully operational.