Gov. Maura Healey wants to close the state’s Pocasset Mental Health Center. It’s part of her fiscal 2026 proposed budget.
The Pocasset facility is a 16-bed inpatient acute mental health stabilization unit serving patients aged 19 and older.
Healey also intends to reduce the state's mental health case manager workforce. The closings and staff cuts are drawing a strong backlash.
As Healey filed her fiscal 2026 budget Wednesday, a string of health care unions lamented the governor's plan to shut down Pocasset Mental Health Center — also known as the Cape Cod & Islands Community Mental Health Center — that is run by the state's Department of Mental Health.
Asked to confirm the closure, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services told the Statehouse News Service, "We have taken these steps to improve the care and services we are able to offer."
"We recognize these changes have significant impacts on patients and families, and we are committed to supporting them through the transition of their care," spokesperson Olivia James said. "We will also work with employees and our partners in labor to support impacted employees and ensure they are able to transition to new roles."
There are 56 employees at Pocasset. Beyond the center, Healey's budget calls for reducing the volume of DMH case managers from 340 to 170, HHS said.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association’s director of public communications David Schildmeier tells CAI the Pocasset center is often the facility of last resort.
“We are in the midst of a mental health crisis in Massachusetts. Our emergency departments both at Falmouth and Cape Cod Hospitals and Beth Israel Deaconess in Plymouth and every other hospital in Massachusetts are overloaded with psychiatric patients who can’t find beds and services.”
He said without the Pocasset center many patients might have to travel long distances to get the treatment they need.
“Facilities like Pocasset provide a vital service to keep patients out of the emergency room, or to treat or manage patients who might be suffering from an acute mental illness and can be stabilized. We can't afford to lose any bed or any mental health service in Massachusetts. Particularly state operated services. Unlike private sector facilities that cherry-pick their patients, place like Pocasset and psychiatric facilities run by the state take everybody of every economic status”
DMH staff were notified about the Pocasset action on Wednesday, Jan. 22.
"I understand that this is very difficult information to receive, but I also want to be honest about the budget realities we are facing as an agency," says the message, which was circulated by Ann Looney, director of labor relations at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
"As the process unfolds in the weeks ahead, we will update you and your union representatives as the budget is debated, and potentially amended, before it is finalized," the message continued. "Any changes would take place after the start of the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and we will meet and bargain with the unions before any changes take place."
Gov. Healey appeared to allude to the Pocasset facility during a press conference Wednesday afternoon when asked why she's closing the Pappas children’s hospital in Canton despite her administration's focus on primary care and mental health.
"I think of it as a redirecting of services, of care," Healey said. "In one place, we have a low utilization rate, only 16 beds. In another place, we have about 39 individuals housed, and a number of them -- the majority of them -- are over the age of 21, so looking at some other options, other facilities, places, where maybe it makes more sense in terms of consolidation of care or the right kind of care for those individuals."
The facility closures don't require legislative approval, state health officials said.
SEIU Local 509 and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO also sounded the alarm about the hospital closures and the DMH case manager layoffs.
"Over 300 union members work between these two facilities, providing essential services to high-needs populations," Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Chrissy Lynch said. "The loss of both facilities alongside critical DMH staff will have severe consequences on our overwhelmed health care system, where every day hundreds of behavioral health patients are kept boarding in emergency departments. This decision will leave vulnerable children, their families, and behavioral health patients in Massachusetts without proper access to care."
It remains to be seen if the Massachusetts House and Senate will retain the governor’s proposal for closing the Pocasset and Canton facilities in their versions of the budget.
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
