Hundreds at meeting against hospital cuts

Cheers rang out in Edmonton Wednesday night as people spoke against a plan to close psychiatric beds at Alberta Hospital.

About 500 people crowded into a public meeting held to air their concerns about Alberta Health Services' plan to close as many as 150 acute care beds at the psychiatric facility and move patients into community-based care.

Since the announcement on Aug. 14, psychiatrists, police, lawyers, people with mental illnesses and their families have spoken in opposition tothe plan because they say it would put ill, vulnerable people on the streets with no support.

At the meetingorganized by the Alberta Union of Public Employees, speaker after speaker reiterated those concerns Wednesday evening. Many of the remarks were met with cheers from the crowd of about 500.

"I take great offence to the government saying that you know, simply, we'll close the beds and move people out to the community, as if that were something really easy to do," said psychiatrist Dr. Krista Leicht.

"I hope in a couple of years' time when this government strategically tries to pretend that none of this ever happened you will remember this,"said Dr. Brian Bishop from Alberta Hospital. "You will,A, get out and vote, and B,get out and vote for somebody who stops continually doing this to our mentally ill patients."

Members of the Alberta NDP were at the meeting circulating a petition, asking people to pressure the government to reversethe decision. Union leaders also took the stage. Butrelatives of people with mental illnesses also spoke about how the bed closures would directly effect them.

Sandra McCullum, for example, has a schizophrenic brother who has been admitted to hospital four times since 2001, staying a total of seven months. "If that hospital is not available to him next time this almost inevitably happens, where does this leave him and our family?" she said.

When the downsizing was announced, no details were given about how many patients would be affected or how many beds would close, though there are estimates as many as 150 beds could close.

An official with Alberta Health Services said bed closures would be accompanied by a corresponding shift of services and staff into community-based services over several years, but admitted it was still too early to say how that would be accomplishedsince the government still needed to work on its plan.

No one will be moved unless they are ready to go and no one will end up on the street, officials insisted.