Kingsboro Psychiatric to Stay Put

If don't have health insurance and were planning a lengthy nervous breakdown, good news came recently in the form of a last second reprieve for local longterm psychiatric care facility Kingsboro. Fans of the B12 know it's on Clarkson just east of the main Kings County buildings. Local lawmakers are being given credit for saving the facility from the chopping block of the current NY State budget. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I've often wondered if said lawmakers don't allow such closings to show up in the budget, just so they can come in like white knights and save the day, knowing all along the such closure was absurd. I mean, how do you close a place like this and send dozens of seriously ill people into other crowded conditions miles away? You'd think that everyone would know a closing like this wouldn't fly, but like I said, maybe I'm drawing too many jaded conclusions.

Regardless, I've had a chance to see the NY City mental health system up close (your joke about the Q goes here, though let's just say yours truly is not the patient - this time anyway). I've come away impressed by the level of care that can come at the hands of government-financed hospitals. I mean, it's no Club Med, but given the fact that we live in a country without a coherent health care system, the uninsured at least have options, and not all of them stink. Bellevue, for instance, does a pretty good job. Kings County's short-term mental health and substance abuse inpatient building, also on Clarkson, is a major improvement on the old facility, one that regularly made the news for incompetence. Though I suspect there's still plenty of indifference in some quarters, signs point towards a major improvement. So, when shopping for loony bins, don't forget your local options.