Letters: Closing Greylock Pavilion Fails Patients

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The following is a letter submitted to Tim Jones, CEO and president of Northern Berkshire Healthcare, by representatives of the local Massachusetts Nurses Association.

On behalf of the registered nurses of North Adams Regional Hospital, with the full support of our union and professional association, the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United, we are writing to express our strong opposition to the planned closing of the Greylock Pavilion. We believe this closing represents an abrogation of this institution's mission of providing comprehensive services to all members of our community and a failure to provide state-mandated care parity for those suffering with acute mental illness and substance abuse issues.

As stated on our hospital web site, "North Adams Regional Hospital offers complete inpatient psychiatric services at Greylock Pavilion. Greylock Pavilion is now known throughout Western Massachusetts for its effective treatment programs, offering secure high quality inpatient hospitalization for the adult in need of acute, short-term psychiatric treatment. We provide a safe, therapeutic milieu, encouraging patient and family involvement. Our philosophy is based on the patient's total needs - both physical and emotional."

The nurses of NARH are proud of this program and what it offers to the most vulnerable in our community, and we are appalled that our administration is now proposing to abolish this program and to go back on the commitment to meet our patients "total needs – both physical and emotional." We are concerned that this decision is being made in the midst of a growing shortage of psychiatric beds and services throughout the commonwealth, and Western Massachusetts in particular. The loss of this program will no doubt result in psychiatric patients languishing for hours, if not several days, waiting for appropriate care and treatment in our and other facility's emergency department, while other patients will go without treatment altogether, leaving them to suffer on our streets, in our homeless shelters or, as is the case throughout the state, in our corrections system.


As registered nurses, we have a professional obligation to advocate for our patients to ensure that they receive the care they deserve. In keeping with that obligation, we intend to utilize whatever means and resources are necessary to challenge this decision for the good of our patients and our community.

We sincerely hope that you will reconsider this decision and we look forward to an opportunity to meet with you to discuss alternatives to this closure so that we all can continue our mission of meeting our "patients’'total needs – both physical and emotional."

Respectfully,

MNA Chairman Ruth O'Hearn, registered nurse
North Adams Regional Hospital MNA Committee


Tags: letters to the editor,   NARH,   nursing,   

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Clarksburg Sees Race for Select Board Seat

CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The town will see a three-way race for a seat on the Select Board in May. 
 
Colton Andrews, Seth Alexander and Bryana Malloy returned papers by Wednesday's deadline to run for the three-year term vacated by Jeffrey Levanos. 
 
Andrews ran unsuccessfully for School Committee and is former chairman of the North Adams Housing Authority, on which he was a union representative. He is also president of the Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council.
 
Malloy and Alexander are both newcomers to campaigning. Malloy is manager of industrial relations for the Berkshire Workforce Board and Alexander is a resident of Gates Avenue. 
 
Alexander also returned papers for several other offices, including School Committee, moderator, library trustee and the five-year seat on the Planning Board. He took out papers for War Memorial trustee and tree warden but did not return them and withdrew a run for Board of Health. 
 
He will face off in the three-year School Committee seat against incumbent Cynthia Brule, who is running for her third term, and fellow newcomer Bonnie Cunningham for library trustee. 
 
Incumbent Ronald Boucher took out papers for a one-year term as moderator but did not return them. He was appointed by affirmation in 2021 when no won ran and accepted the post again last year as a write-in.
 
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