Outrage is a mild word for what was expressed by elected
officials and community leaders at yesterday's hastily called
press conference in front of Borough Hall in Staten Island. They
accused St. Vincent's Medical Center of deceit in the proposal it
submitted to the community to convert a St. George convent into a
support residence for the mentally ill.
A member of Congress, Vito Fossella; a state senator, Diane
Savino; an assemblyman, Matthew Mirones, and the minority leader
of the City Council, James Oddo, were among the speakers reacting
to a set of documents uncovered last weekend by a St. George
attorney, Dan Marotta, through the Freedom of Information Act.
Last spring, officials of St. Vincent's said they would be
opening a 59-bed facility at 78 Fort Place for a population of
stable mentally ill patients. A copy of the hospital's proposal
to the state Office of Mental Health indicated, however, that the
target population of the facility would include individuals
released from jail or prison, including a program at the Sing
Sing Correctional Facility; individuals discharged directly from
acute psychiatric units or hospitals, and individuals under the
supervision of the Brooklyn Mental Health Court.
Fort Place is in a residential neighborhood in St. George, an
area undergoing a much-delayed renaissance. The site of the
proposed facility is just two blocks from an elementary school,
and there are two high schools in the area.
When St. Vincent's reached out to our elected officials, Ms.
Savino said, it assured them the population of the facility would
be 59 stable, somewhat independent mental patients, some of whom
would be working. They sought the public officials' support, she
said, because "the taxpayers are going to be paying for this
entire project."
That description of the proposed patient population is in stark
contrast to what was proposed in the state documents. Ms. Savino
said that when the community originally voiced its opposition to
the proposal, it was accused of being, "biased, racist, and
intolerant."
"You cannot look at Community Board 1 and make that
charge," she said, adding that the area covered by Board 1
already has 2,907 beds for supportive housing in similar
programs.
She then introduced Rep. Fossella, a Republican of Staten Island
and Brooklyn, who had set aside his schedule for the day to
attend the press conference. He stressed that he valued the
decades of service by St. Vincent's to the Staten Island
community. In this situation, however, "Frankly, St.
Vincent's is wrong," he said.
The community has legitimate concerns about the proposed
conversion of the convent into a facility for mental patients.
The families of Fort Place typically have invested much of their
life savings in their homes. Many of us, Mr. Fossella said, have
been trying to balance ensuring that the community gets what it
wants and seeing that St. Vincent's adequately carries out its
health care mission.
"But right now, these documents ... illustrate that St.
Vincent's, at a minimum, has been misleading, by omission, the
questions and concerns that this community has had. It is one
thing to serve those in need. It's another not to be honest with
the community and the elected officials who represent this
community."
According to Ms. Savino, St. Vincent's response to the state
documents was that its proposal was a standard prototype and none
of the patients in that document would be housed at the new
facility. Thus, the only possible conclusion is that St.
Vincent's was either lying to the community or lying to the
state.
A South Shore assemblyman, Vito Ignizio, warned against future
deceptive proposals when he said, "We stand here in unison,
Republicans and Democrats alike, the people who represent from
the city, the state, and the local government, to say we will not
tolerate institutions that come to us and want to drop anchor
here on Staten Island and potentially lie to the community and
its elected officials alike." The president of the St.
George Civic Association, James Boivin, said that when he first
opposed the facility, it was more a matter of the oversaturation
of social agencies in the area. After learning what was actually
proposed to the state, he said, "I wouldn't wish this on any
community."
Responding last night to my questions about the project, the
medical center's communications and planning spokeswoman,
Bernadette Kingham-Bez, explained that whenever a project is
publicly financed, the proposal must include criteria that may
include segments of the population that are generally
underserved. While St. Vincent's may be required to screen those
patients, they will not necessarily be admitted to the Fort Place
facility, she said.
"St. Vincent's has always been concerned with the safety of
our patients and the community that we serve," she said, and
she assured me that she would be following up in a dialogue with
all interested parties. Now is the time for all good people to
communicate.