WEST SENECA, NEW YORK) – Buoyed by the recent announcements that both the New York State Assembly and Senate have unanimously passed bills to keep and operate the Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center (WNYCPC) in West Seneca, the State Public Employees Federation (PEF) has stepped up – once again – and provided an additional $30,000 in monies to help fund an anticipated legal battle to make it happen, PEF President Wayne Spence tells WNYLaborToday.com.

Republican State Senator Pat Gallivan of Elma and Democratic Assemblyman Mickey Kearns of Buffalo were both successful in having their sponsored bills - which would require New York State to operate the WNYCPC as a “separate entity” – pass with unanimous approval earlier this month.   Both Gallivan and Kearns, along with a number of other former WNYCPC patients, their parents and families, community activists and Organized Labor - including PEF and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), have been involved in the long-time effort to have the WNYCPS stay in West Seneca instead of being merged into the Adult Buffalo Psychiatric Center in the City of Buffalo, which the State has wanted to do for some time now.

In a telephone interview, Spence (Pictured Above/WNYLaborToday.com File Photo) - whose Union represents Workers employed at the West Seneca facility, told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper that PEF’s Executive Board had approved $30,000 to the WNYCPC Fight Back Coalition, which will be used to mount a legal fight to keep the facility open and stave off the previously announced merger should the State decide to ignore the bills passed by the Legislature and move ahead with the merger.

“It is ‘our hope the State recognizes that when it comes to children, it needs to keep the center in West Seneca and invest in it.’  I really is a ‘gem,’” said Spence, adding PEF had made $60,000 in funds available to the coalition last year as it continued its fight to keep the WNYCPC where it currently is.  “Our Executive Board has taken action and approved it specifically for legal bills.  ‘We will not stop until the door is bolted and even then, we are going to continue to fight.’  ‘We will not give up.’  ‘We are not playing chess here.’”

For the past three consecutive years, a coalition of Labor Unions, community groups and elected officials from both sides of the aisle - have come together to successfully stop the New York State Office of Mental Health’s (NYSOMH) plan to close the tranquil and wooded WNYCPC that serves children as young as four years old and merge it into the Adult and urban Buffalo Psychiatric Center, which also houses adult sex offenders on its grounds.

“Unfortunately, the State ‘just doesn’t get it when it comes to the long-term treatment of children.’  ‘You don’t put children in jail with children and it’s the same when it comes to psychiatric care.’  ‘These are unique needs’.  The Buffalo Psychiatric Center ‘does a great job, but the WNYCPC does an excellent job when it comes to children.’  ‘These are two different situations in two different locations,’” Spence told WNYLaborToday.com.

Spence also took time in speaking with Your On-Line Labor Newspaper to praise two PEF Representatives who’ve worked hard over the course of time to keep the WNYCPC exactly where it belongs, in West Seneca: Dave Chudy, a retired PEF Official and Group Chair of the Save Our Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center; and Stephanie McLean-Beathley, who oversees the Union’s Membership at the WNYCPC.

“They are ‘both dedicated people,’ as well as those others (who have been involved in the fight to keep the WNYCPC where it is),” he said.

Chudy told WNYLaborToday.com he was “grateful” for Spence’s kind works, but voiced his frustration with the State’s continued stance on merging the children’s facility into Buffalo’s Adult Facility: “We are ‘grateful’ for PEF and Wayne Spence, ‘who’s backed us one-hundred-percent.’  ‘We are all very grateful.’  Both the CSEA and the WNYALF (Western New York AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation) ‘has also been of great help.’”

“But everyone we talk to gets it,’” Chudy said.  “This is a ‘crazy, horrible move’ for the kids.  The State has ‘danced around it for four years now, but can’t recognize those seventy-two acres is better than a small grassy, fenced-in area.’  It’s a ‘beautiful park-like setting that’s unmatched anywhere in the State,’ from Buffalo to Long Island.  There’s ‘no clinical reason to make this move.’  ‘We’re ‘going to continue our fight,’ through legal means, ‘getting our word out’ on Social Media, through mailings and a fundraiser we’ve planned for mid-August.  We’ve also started a GoFundMe account (which is accessible at: www.gofundme.com/saveourwnycpc) to help raise money for this battle.  If it gets to that point, ‘we hope the court would rule in our favor.’” 

The WNYCPC, which opened in 1970, serves 19 Western New York Counties and has been there over the years for a countless number of emotionally disturbed children between the ages of four and 18.  At last report, the facility had 46 inpatients and a waiting list of 16.

In addition, the WNYCPC received a 99% rating in 2012, as well as special designation in being in the top 10% of all hospitals accredited by the Illinois-Based Joint Commission across the United States, and has the lowest re-hospitalization rates in New York State out of all children and adult facilities.  The Joint Commission is an independent/non-profit organization that accredits and certifies more than 20,000 health care facilities and programs, mostly hospitals, in the country - both public and private.

Despite this and the fact that the local State Delegation was able get the State Legislature to include funding for a third straight year for the WNYCPC in the 2016-2017 budget, keeping it open until the end of March (2017) - NYSOMH still stands firm on its mission to downsize the number of psychiatric centers in the State, which was first unveiled back in July 2013 and when all learned of its plan to move WNYCPC and incorporate it into the adult Buffalo Psychiatric Center, despite continued public and patient backlash that there’s no real need to move the Children’s Center from its sprawling, wooded and tranquil base of care in rural West Seneca into a urban location where adults are also housed.

At last report, PEF represents a little more than 100 Workers at WNYCPC, while the CSEA represents another 80 at the West Seneca Facility.