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Ogdensburg pastor says mentally ill need St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center

Posted 5/30/13

*Editors note: The following letter was sent to Kristin Woodlock, acting commissioner of the Office of Mental Health by The Rev. Laurena Will, First Presbyterian Church of Ogdensburg. Dear Kristin M. …

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Ogdensburg pastor says mentally ill need St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center

Posted

*Editors note: The following letter was sent to Kristin Woodlock, acting commissioner of the Office of Mental Health by The Rev. Laurena Will, First Presbyterian Church of Ogdensburg.

Dear Kristin M. Woodlock

I am writing with regard to the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center located in Ogdensburg. NY and serving a six county catchment area in the North Country of New York.

I am afraid and it is not about jobs though I do understand the need for jobs. The issue is people and need of the services that the Psych Center provides. Some years ago, before I came to be the Presbyterian Minister in Ogdensburg, the State

took the then over 1,500 adult residential Care Center and turned it into a just under 70 adult residential Care Center. Many of the residents from that time now live in the community. I talk to these people as they live and move among us. Many are sad, depressed, lost, and/or feeling worthless. Many of the outpatient services have either gone by the wayside or do not serve as well as they might.

I have heard from folks suffering from mental illness about how wonderful it was to have someplace safe to live and work. The Psych Center was, in the early day, running a farm and serving the community. Later the Center had a Green House, an out-patient geriatric cen­ ter, among many other things. Perhaps most importantly community people in crisis could be taken there to receive help.

People with mental illness could work at the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in an envi­ronment that was equipped to help when the voices or breakdowns came. People living at the Center could still work and be who they needed to be, unlike in the world beyond the Center because the illness prevents them from being employable in other ways.

The Residents of the Psychiatric Center were and are very much a part of the commu­nity and very much cared about by the community and vice versa.

The six Counties of the North Country have very little to offer in the way of help for people suffering from mental illness. Because the Psych Center was all but shut down some time ago people with mental illness in crisis in St. Lawrence County are taken to the Claxton Hepburn Hospital in Ogdensburg. There are very few doctors equipped to handle the mentally ill at the Hospital and there are very few beds for them. So as it is we need more mental health care and service not less! I encounter people who are wandering lost and at risk daily. In a time when we are looking at our Country and its inability to deal with and help the mentally ill

and in a six countv catchment area where the mentallv ill are alreadv so verv marginalized it is shocking to me that the state is even contemplating reducing the available care for folks.

Sincerely Yours, The Reverend Laurena Will, First Presbyterian Church of Ogdensburg