Massachusetts Nurses Association is holding this socially distanced event in the well outside the front of the State House in Boston the day before the state allows the closing of 67 psychiatric beds, including the inpatient adult, child and adolescent unit – the only child and adolescent unit serving all of Western Mass -- and a key unit for providing acute behavioral health care to marginalized communities, including the homeless in the Greater Springfield area.  We are holding the event  to draw attention to the need for the state to have the authority to stop the closure of services the DPH has deemed that are essential and should not be closed, as the DPH has done for this service. 

June 29, 2020 11 am MA State House

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• Governor Baker: Save Essential Western Mass Mental Health Beds!
  
  Save the Date: Rally at the State House June 29 at 11 a.m.
  
  A diverse coalition will gather outside the State House in Boston on June 29 to protest the imminent closure of 74 pediatric and adult psychiatric beds at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital.
  
  Hospital owner Trinity Health plans to permanently close the beds on June 30 even though they were deemed “necessary for preserving access and health” by the Department of Public Health and Trinity is a billion-dollar corporation receiving millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 reimbursement money.
  
  Learn more: https://www.massnurses.org/news-and-events/p/openItem/11740
  
  We call on Gov. Baker to immediately halt this closure.

• These are the only child mental health beds in all of Western Massachusetts.

• Mental health is public health. People are struggling to access psychiatric care across Massachusetts.

• Closure means more patients boarding for days or weeks in emergency departments.

• More patients waiting in EDs during the COVID-19 pandemic is a grave threat to public health.
  
  JOIN US on JUNE 29 at 11 a.m.! MA State House
  
  Learn more: https://www.massnurses.org/news-and-events/p/openItem/11740