(WEST SENECA, NEW YORK) – The attorney representing the Save Our Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center has obtained a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from a State Supreme Court Judge to stop the State’s plan to merge the children’s West Seneca facility into the adult Buffalo Psychiatric Center, a spokesman for the group tells WNYLaborToday.com.

Erie County Supreme Court Justice Catherine Nugent-Panepinto has granted a TRO that would stop all construction at the Buffalo adult psychiatric center that is currently being done to accommodate the move of the Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center (WNYCPC) and prevent Governor Andrew Cuomo from vetoing favorable legislation that has been passed by both the State Assembly and Senate that keeps the children’s facility in West Seneca, Save Our Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center Group Chair David Chudy - a retired New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) Official, told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper today (Monday, July 17th).  A full hearing on the issue has been scheduled for July 27th.

For the past four years, a coalition of Labor Unions - including the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and PEF, community groups and elected officials from both sides of the aisle - have come together to successfully stave off 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.

Late last week, the Save Our Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center held a news conference (Pictured Below/Save Our Western New York CPC Photos) outside the children’s facility to announce it had filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing Governor Andrew Cuomo from closing the West Seneca facility and merging it into the adult Buffalo facility.

The lawsuit seeks to compel Cuomo to avoid undue delay in the enactment of the legislation, which would “re-establish stability and avoid irreparable harm” to the child patients of the children’s psychiatric center, the group said at the news conference

The lawsuit also asks the court to compel the governor to sign Senate Bill 4630/Assembly Bill 6505 into law, thereby permanently prohibiting the move and to establish a “continued commitment to the State’s most vulnerable,” they said.

Since the bill passed unanimously in both houses, even if the governor vetoed it, there are enough votes to override his veto, the group believes.  However, the emotional upheaval of a veto by Cuomo would have “serious repercussions” for patients and Staff.

“Mental health care ‘shouldn’t be a political football,’” the group’s attorney, Steven Cohen, said. “It’s a ‘rarity’ when ‘both’ the State Senate and Assembly ‘unanimously support’ such an ‘important bill.’  ‘But they did, so now Governor Cuomo ‘it’s your turn to join everyone by signing the bill.’”

Last month both the State Assembly and Senate unanimously approved legislation blocking Cuomo's recommended closing of the West Seneca center.  The legislation also prevents the transfer of the youthful patients to the Buffalo Psychiatric Center.

For the past four years, the Children’s Psychiatric Center in West Seneca has been threatened with closing.  Cuomo ultimately wants to move the facility and its programming to the grounds of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center.  The merger will cost taxpayers an estimated $22 million, the Save Our Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center Group contends.

In a recent survey sponsored by Democratic State Assemblyman Mickey Kearns of West Seneca, all but one of the more than 2,400 constituents who responded said they want Cuomo to sign the bill into law: “The Children’s Psychiatric Center is ‘ranked one of the best’ in the State.  This legal action is ‘preventable’ by Governor Cuomo signing the bill ‘passed unanimously’ by the New York State Assembly and Senate.  After a public hearing and testimony by experts, we know there is ‘no sound evidence to support a case for moving’ the Western New York Children’s Psychiatric Center into the adult Buffalo Psychiatric Center facility.  ‘We can’t let politics disrupt the excellent care this facility provides to the most vulnerable in our community, our children.’”

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 continue to include funding over the years 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.