{"id":13496,"date":"2013-12-09T14:50:56","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T19:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=13496"},"modified":"2013-12-09T14:50:56","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T19:50:56","slug":"slc-sheriff-oburg-psych-changes-would-tax-county-jails-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/12\/09\/slc-sheriff-oburg-psych-changes-would-tax-county-jails-capacity\/","title":{"rendered":"SLC sheriff: O’burg psych changes would tax county jail’s capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"St.<\/a>

St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center. Photo: Lizette Haenel<\/p><\/div>\n

The St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center Task Force<\/a> and other local leaders will be in Albany Tuesday to meet with members of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s staff (although apparently not the governor himself.) They’ll be making a case that the center should maintain its current facilities, rather than losing its inpatient beds in an effort by the state to save money, streamline mental health services, and refocus its efforts onto outpatient care.<\/p>\n

They have a petition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Sommerstein will have more on this in the\u00a0 morning on our air and on the web, but a quick mention today of the comments of St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells, who’s also one of the members of the task force. Wells told WWNY-TV<\/a> that if the center loses its inpatient beds, it could create a serious burden for the St. Lawrence County Jail. Why? Because people who would be treated at St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in its current form won’t have that option if the center loses those beds, and, he told WWNY earlier this month, many will turn to substance abuse<\/a> and find themselves in jail.<\/p>\n

That’s one of several concerns opponents of the changes have expressed — including long waits and travel times for care (and to visit inpatient family members.) There has also been a great concern about a potential loss of jobs, although the state has said there won’t be (outright) job losses — that employees would be offered positions elsewhere in the state<\/a>. North Country Senator Patty Ritchie is co-sponsoring a bill that would hold the changes until 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center Task Force and other local leaders will be in Albany […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13496"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13507,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496\/revisions\/13507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}