Community To Rally Against Cuts To Inwood Psychiatric Ward

Update: Thursday night's rally has been postponed until July 11. State lawmakers Robert Jackson and Carmen De La Rosa, who plan to speak at the rally, are held up in Albany.

INWOOD, NY — Opponents of NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital's plan to remove psychiatric units from its Inwood hospital will hold a rally at the medical facility Thursday evening.

Groups organizing the rally — such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the New York State Nurses Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Uptown Progressive Action and Inwood Indivisible — will accuse NewYork–Presbyterian of putting profits over the needs of the Upper Manhattan community.

New York-Presbyterian Hospital filed plans with the state Department of Health in 2017 to decertify a 30-bed inpatient psychiatric unit at The Allen Hospital. The hospital, which is located on Broadway near West 220th Street, would replace the unit with a labor and delivery unit, two C-section rooms and neonatal intensive care unit, according to plans filed with the state. The $70 million plan would also allow the hospital to construct four surgical operating rooms and support rooms.

Opponents of the plan say that the hospital is presenting a false choice between caring for the mentally ill and mothers giving birth. The reality of the situation is that the psychiatric beds will be taken away to make space for the expansion of the Allen Hospital's Daniel and Jane Och Spine Hospital, rally organizers said in a statement.

Politicians such as State Senator Robert Jackson and State Assemblymember Carmen De La Rosa plan to attend the rally, according to organizers. Local elected officials penned a letter in 2018 calling the hospital's plan "deeply worrisome." The state representatives cited New York-Presbyterian's previous statements identifying behavioral health services as a priority need in northern Manhattan as reason not to decertify beds at the Allen Hospital.

The NewYork-Presbyterian hospital system's closest facility to the Allen Hospital is Columbia University Medical Center on West 168th Street. Opponents of the plan also doubt that many patients who receive services at the Allen Hospital will be able to make the trip to New York-Presbyterian's hospital in White Plains, which houses the majority of the system's psychiatric beds.

Thursday night's rally will be held in front of the Allen Hospital at 6 p.m., according to organizers.