Ralliers Focus On Protecting Massachusetts Mental Health Jobs

By Alison Kuznitz

Energized by Gov. Maura Healey’s pause on shuttering on two state-run hospitals, hundreds of health care workers, labor union members, patient families and advocates vowed on the State House steps Tuesday to continue their fight to keep the facilities open and stave off layoffs at the Department of Mental Health.

“We won a battle — we haven’t won the war,” Jean Calvert-McClure, DMH chapter leader at Local SEIU 509, said at the boisterous rally, filled with cheers and cars honking in solidarity. “But because we’re all here and the work we’re all doing, we’re going to win this war.”

Health care and labor unions had organized their “Cares Not Cuts” rally days ahead of Healey’s abrupt announcement Monday evening that she was suspending her controversial budget plans to shutter Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in Canton and Pocasset Mental Health Center on Cape Cod.

Healey’s decision came after weeks of public outcry from Bay Staters and elected officials, whose fears over lingering health care budget cuts remained on display Tuesday morning.

Ralliers held up signs that read “save our children,” “Health Care is a Human Right,” and “NO CUTS NO CLOSURES SAVE OUR SERVICES!” Three patients in wheelchairs from Pappas, which serves children with severe disabilities, joined the gathering. 

The governor said her administration will bring together stakeholders “to conduct a further review of the care offered at these facilities and make recommendations on the best path forward to ensure we are providing the highest quality of care with the resources at hand.”

But Healey did not hit the pause button on another cost-saving measure in her budget: slashing the number of DMH case managers from 340 to 170.