Healey closing Canton, Pocasset mental health facilities

Gov. Maura Healey moved to close two mental health hospitals in Canton and Pocasset and lay off half the Department of Mental Health’s case managers in an effort to cut down costs and balance the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal she rolled out Wednesday.

The decision to shutter the facilities and attempt to reduce mental health positions comes as the first-term Democrat from Arlington is facing slower tax revenue growth than the red-hot years of the pandemic that prompted increases in state spending. It also follows the closing of hospitals formerly owned by Steward Health Care in Dorchester and Ayer.

Healey said consolidating hospitals under the Department of Public Health would save the state $31 million even as the order to close the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in Canton and the Pocasset Mental Health Center put at least 281 state jobs at risk of being eliminated.

Union officials representing healthcare workers across the state immediately condemned Healey.

James Durkin, director of legislation and political action at AFSCME Council 93, said the union will be “aggressively opposing” the hospital closures in Canton and Pocasset. The labor organization represents direct care workers, including state employees in Canton and Pocasset

“They’re just eliminating the beds at a time where there is a dire shortage of inpatient mental health beds,” Durkin told the Herald Wednesday.

Top budget writers for the Healey administration acknowledged the closure of the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in a briefing with reporters earlier in the day but did not mention the plan for the mental health facility on Cape Cod.

But the Department of Mental Health confirmed the fate of the Pocasset Mental Health Center in a message to agency staff, according to a copy of the missive obtained by the Herald Wednesday.

The message said the Healey administration fiscal year 2026 budget included the closure of the acute inpatient unit in Pocasset and an effort to reduce the number of case management staff.

Any changes would take place after the start of the fiscal year on July 1 and state officials would meet and bargain with unions beforehand, according to the message, which was circulated by Health and Human Services Labor Relations Director Ann Looney.

“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. 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 memo, which was titled “commissioner message,” said.

The governor does not need legislative approval to close the mental health facilities, according to the Healey administration. A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services did not provide a timeline for their closures.

Healey also pitched reducing the number of Department of Mental Health case managers from 340 to 170 in her budget proposal for the next fiscal year, according to the spokesperson.

“We recognize these changes have significant impacts on patients and families, and we are committed to supporting them through the transition of their care. 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,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Herald.

SEIU 509 President Dave Foley, who represents the case managers, said Healey announced a “drastic proposal of budget cuts that will have a devastating impact on our most vulnerable residents and jeopardize the livelihoods of human services workers.”

Foley said the union would not let the cuts “go unchallenged” and called on the Healey administration to tap into a $9 billion reserve account to avoid the hospital closures and any layoffs proposed in the budget.

“At a time when the commonwealth is reeling from the far-reaching effects of trauma and a growing need for crisis intervention, we cannot stand by as the infrastructure that our communities depend on is dismantled,” Foley said in a statement.

Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children was serving 36 patients as of Wednesday who would be transferred to “appropriate settings” over the next six to nine months, according to the Department of Public Health.

More than half of the current patients at the facility are over the age of 18 and are awaiting discharge to other locations, the agency said in a statement.

The decision to close the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children would “affect the more than 225 current … employees” as well as staff from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Easterseals, and Aramark who provide services at the Canton facility, according to the Department of Public Health.

It was unclear if those employees would be offered new jobs. A spokesperson for the Department of Public Health said the agency would work with “labor partners to identify appropriate opportunities for staff.”

The Pocasset Mental Health Center is a 16-bed psychiatric hospital with 56 staff, according to the Healey administration.

Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, said Healey’s budget proposal included “significant cuts” to the healthcare and human services sector.

“Massachusetts is one of the richest states in the richest country in the world. Especially at a time when our residents face new threats from the Trump administration, we should be making new investments to meet the needs of our state’s families, not subjecting them to catastrophic cuts targeting healthcare and other critical public services,” he said in a statement.