AFSCME challenges permit to close Singer MHC

A letter from Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer triggered a public hearing held by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board on the governor's plan to close Singer Mental Health Center. The state is required to get a permit from the IHFSRB in order to go through with the closure.

The state is seeking a discontinuation of service permit from the board which they need to implement the closure. AFSCME members from Singer, health officials, members of the public and Council 31 staff presented evidence to the board, arguing that the center's in-patient psychiatric care beds are critically needed in the Rockford area.

"Singer delivers excellent and irreplaceable services to individuals with mental illness," Council 31 public policy director Anne Irving said in testimony at the hearing. In addition to cataloguing a long list of reasons why the services are irreplaceable, Irving also pointed out that "With this closure 130 dedicated union employees will be laid off, and join the ranks of the unemployed here in Rockford, which at 13 percent has the highest unemployment rate of any Illinois metropolitan area."

Click here for a local psychiatrists opinion: Guest column: Singer Mental Health Center must stay open.

Click here for a Rockford Register Star article on the hearing.

Click here for the IHFSRB website and scroll down to item H. for more information.