Upper Manhattan residents are outraged over the planned closure of their local hospital’s psychiatric ward, saying it will discourage the mentally ill from getting treatment — and potentially endanger the neighborhood.
NewYork-Presbyterian is seeking state permission to “decertify” all 30 psychiatric beds at its Allen Hospital in Inwood, which currently provides inpatient treatment to hundreds of locals each year.
“The scary prospect is that the folks will give up the search for help if they’re forced to go seek it,” Community Board 12 Chairman Shah Ally told The Post.
“With the beds closing, bad things are going to happen, whether it’s people killing themselves or killing someone else.”
An Allen Hospital nurse, Anthony Ciampa, blasted the plan during a recent public meeting, noting that some patients treated in Allen’s psych ward suffer from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and also take illegal drugs.
“These are low-functioning patients with histories of violence,” warned Ciampa, second vice president of the New York State Nurses Association.
“For NewYork-Presbyterian to close its doors to the mentally ill does not reflect the actions of a community hospital. This translates to me as taking away from areas of need and building in profitable areas of greed.”
Longtime Inwood resident Mary Dixon, who volunteers at the hospital alongside a Catholic priest, noted on Sunday that the area was already teeming with mentally ill homeless people.
“There would be problems in the neighborhood if they don’t have a place to be admitted,” she said.
NewYork-Presbyterian submitted a $70 million plan to the state Health Department in late December to eliminate the Allen Hospital’s psychiatric unit in favor of moving and modernizing its maternity ward and adding four operating rooms and “support spaces,” records show.
The move would slash the NewYork-Presbyterian system’s 352 psychiatric beds by almost 8 percent, with the vast majority of those remaining, 251, at its Westchester Division in White Plains.
Late last month, CB 12 voted 34-to-0 against the idea, noting that the psychiatric beds are used to treat 600 people annually, “almost half of them Washington Heights-Inwood residents.”
US Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Washington Heights) sent a letter to Dr. Steven Corwin, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian, in which he and 14 other elected officials called the plan “troubling.”
“Specifically, the psychiatric services at Allen Hospital have provided incredibly important and stable mental-health resources for the surrounding communities,” the letter says.
Bronx resident Edward Moffitt, 53, told The Post that he has been repeatedly treated in the Allen psych ward for depression, including after he tried to kill himself by jumping off the Broadway Bridge about two years ago.
Moffitt said he would be “in trouble” if it closed.
“That’s the closest hospital to me,” he said.
“They were always good to me. Took good care of me. Now I don’t know where I’d go.”
Inwood resident and psychiatrist Scott Shaffer, 36, said the closure plan “makes absolutely no sense from a standpoint of good patient care and the best interest of patients.”
In a statement, NewYork-Presbyterian said, “The behavioral health services we provide to the northern Manhattan community will continue to include inpatient and outpatient care.”
Asked where those services would be provided, a spokeswoman said, “Each patient will be evaluated and receive services where most appropriate for their needs, subject to patient choice.”
The Health Department declined to comment.