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Lawsuit attempts to stop closing of health center

3 min read

A lawsuit was filed last week with Commonwealth Court seeking to stop the state Department of Health from closing 26 state health centers, including the one in Greene County.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents nurses at the centers, filed the suit claiming the department’s plan to consolidate 60 health centers into 34 violates a law that established the minimum number of health centers the state must maintain.

The suit was joined by several state legislators, including Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Waynesburg, and state Sen. Tim Solobay, D-Canonsburg.

“I’m truly concerned this will leave our area under served,” Snyder said Thursday. “You now have nurses and a center there that provide needed services to the citizens of Greene County.

“For the administration to do this without input from the legislature, legislative hearings or debate is just wrong.”

The Greene County center on Oakview Drive in Franklin Township is staffed by one nurse and a secretary. It provides immunizations for children and people who are uninsured or under-insured, conducts HIV and STD testing and holds flu and tuberculosis clinics.

The complaint claims neither the department nor Gov. Tom Corbett or any member of the executive branch has the legal authority to close or reduce the number of state health centers.

It cites Act 87 of 1996, a law that requires the department to continue operating all public health centers that were open as of July 1995.

Attempts to circumvent laws passed by the General Assembly violate the state Constitution, it said.

“The legislative power of the commonwealth is held exclusively by the General Assembly and neither the governor nor other officials in the executive branch may exercise such powers,” the complaint said.

Plans to close state health centers “without legislative authority directly encroaches on and displaces the constitutional authority of the legislative petitions to act as legislators and represent their constituents.”

The affected health centers would be consolidated with those of neighboring counties. According to the union, the center in Greene County would be consolidated with Washington County Health Center.

SEIU said the plan will result in 73 workers, including 26 community health nurses, losing their jobs.

Acting Secretary of Health Michael Wolf declined to discuss the litigation or specific plans being proposed which he said were developed “to modernize” the health center system, a system that has been in place since the late 1970s or early 1980s.

The department had looked at how it best can deliver services to the people it serves who are primarily the uninsured or under-insured, he said.

It decided it could best do that by having its nurses out in the community instead of behind a desk or in an office, he said.

“It is our belief we can best serve the community by being in the community,” Wolf said. This could involve providing services at community events and functions like soup kitchens, local fire halls and senior citizen centers.

“We’re committed to being in these counties whether at a physical location or not,” he said. Under the plan, “it is our belief we’ll have a better presence” in the community than the centers have now, he said.

According to the complaint, the department began informing the affected centers in early March. While the plans called for the first seven of the centers to close March 29, the date has since been pushed to May 3. The second phase of the plan, which would close the other 19 centers, is scheduled to go into effect May 31.

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