Pause is ‘not good enough’: Health facility workers, patients, and advocates rally to oppose closures

This article was originally published on Boston.com

As AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blared down Beacon Hill, hundreds of nurses, teachers, patients, and advocates gathered along the front steps of the Statehouse Tuesday morning to protest Gov. Maura Healey’s proposed budget cuts that would limit health services at two state facilities and eliminate many case management positions from the Department of Mental Health.

The “Care, Not Cuts” rally formed in response to the Healey administration’s January announcement that it would be shuttering both Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in Canton and Pocasset Mental Health Center on Cape Cod in its proposed 2026 budget.

The night before the protest took place, Healey announced her administration would pause plans to close both facilities to “bring together a diverse group of 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,” Healey said in a statement.

Many staff members and parents at Pappas said the pause is a good move forward — but not the end of the fight.

Pappas serves 36 patients between the ages of 7 to 22 who have physical and cognitive disabilities. Many state studies and reviews suggested that the decades-old infrastructure and technology is not up to date at Pappas.

Debbie Porter, a teacher at Pappas for 27 years and an Easton resident, said “Pappas is worth it” and that anyone who comes to see the 160-acre campus can see the work put into it by the staff.

“We’re here to support our students,” Porter said. “We know everything that Pappas has to offer them, and we want to continue for our students now and for our students and patients in the future.”

Franklin resident Kim Daley has served as an instructional support teacher at Pappas for 15 years and said Pappas is “encouraged” by the pause but acknowledged that more work needs to be done to make a full stop and receive funding.

“A pause is a time to reflect,” Daley said, “And we want that reflection to be that Pappas is staying where it is in Canton with the appropriate funding.”

Speakers from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Pappas, Pocasset Mental Health Center, and the Department of Mental Health shared how vital their services are to its communities and acknowledged Healey’s recent action.

“This is only a pause,” Alanna Stanley, a nurse at Pocasset since 2016, told the crowd. “We still need the governor to stop the cuts to case management and find the resources that we know are there to ensure a better mental health system for all.”

Many people made their way to the second floor of the Statehouse to speak directly to legislators. Sen. Paul Feeney, who serves the Bristol and Norfolk district and is a proponent for Pappas, said the facility has been “a miracle” for patients and families.

“For kids that have been standing up and fighting and persisting their entire lives, they didn’t realize that they were going to have to get into this fight,” Feeney said. “But you know what? They responded better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Parents of Pappas alums and the children themselves also shared some words to the full room.

“The services they [Pappas] offer, you can’t get anywhere else,” former patient Ann MacDonald said at the event. “The things I was able to do and the education I learned at Pappas are things people without disabilities take for granted every day.”

Back at the steps, Alma Alisch spoke to the large crowd with her son Billy, wearing a Brown University knit hat, sitting right next to the podium in his wheelchair. Alisch told the rally goers about traveling 200 miles each day to Boston Children’s Hospital for Billy’s cerebral palsy. It was unmanageable between her three other children and her husband’s sudden heart attack and eventual passing.

Alisch, from Seekonk, said since Billy’s admittance to Pappas in 2016, he has been engaged in recreational activities, such as swimming, and school. Billy especially enjoyed reading and writing and wrote a book about his late father, whose birthday happened to be on the day of the rally.

“[The pause is] not good enough,” Alisch said in an interview. “We won’t stop until we win.”