Multi-Service Center goes out with a whimper
After providing wide-ranging, low cost health care services to South Bronx residents for 45 years, the Hunts Point Multi-Service Center is unceremoniously closing down amid withering criticism by the state agency that oversees it.
In recent years, the center has lost funding from the city while cutting programs ranging from dentistry to mental health treatment. Only counseling and methadone treatment for patients with substance and alcohol abuse diagnoses are still offered at its three locations in Mott Haven. Now those programs, too, are about to disappear, and dozens of staff members are wondering what’s next for them.
The state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, which oversees the Multi-Service Center’s methadone and outpatient programs, says it will take charge of their 417 patients, due to what a spokeswoman for the state agency calls the organization’s “pattern of persistent regulatory violations, and concerns about Hunts Point’s fiscal viability.”
The agency “is reaching out to the executive leadership of the Hunts Point methadone and outpatient programs to lend assistance in transferring patients to other Bronx County-based programs,” spokeswoman Jannette Rondo told The Herald.
The state will “close the program in an orderly, patient-centered fashion,” she continued, while ensuring all patients are transferred to other programs.
The Multi-Service Center’s executive director Manuel Rosa did not respond to phone calls from The Herald. But an alcohol and substance abuse counselor for one of the programs, who also serves as one of Hunts Point’s s union shop stewards, says clients were irate when told the programs they have come to rely on would be ending.
“Clients were pissed off today,” said Victor Moreno, 59, on Sept. 27, adding they were given forms informing them of the various Bronx hospitals and clinics to which they will be transferred. Clients and staff had long suspected that the Multiservice Center’s days were numbered, he said, but added management made matters worse by not announcing its intent to close much sooner.
“They should have told us well in advance, to avoid this chaos and anger and animosity,” said Moreno, who works at the Carmen Iris Capeles Treatment Center, a windowless, brick building on Westchester Avenue with about 30 staff members, including counselors, nurses, phlebotomists and administrative staff.
In addition, money workers thought was being taken out of their paychecks to pay union dues, are unaccounted for, Moreno says. After finding out the clinic would be closing, he asked union representative, Anthony Rios of District Council 1707, “what’s going on with the dues?” Moreno says the union man responded with shock “What dues?”
The Hunts Point Multi-Service Center was a lightning rod for controversy as soon as it opened in 1967. Although its stated intent was to serve the poor, some argued its real objective was to enrich its founder, South Bronx strongman Ramon “El Gordo” Velez, with the federal funds it received for its programs.
More recently, in 2008, the National Labor Relations Board ordered the company to pay $150,000 in back wages to workers it said were unfairly fired for union organizing. In 2009, after years of program cuts and job losses, staff and union brass called a strike, demanding conditions improve. Caseloads had increased and working conditions deteriorated to dangerous levels, they argued. In 2010, the labor court held the company in contempt for violating a collective bargaining agreement with workers.
“They received a contract, they refused to sign it,” said Harvey Mars, the attorney for the union, adding management still failed to comply even after the court found it was in contempt.
“They were trying to defy the employees’ desire to have fair terms and conditions,” he said, adding it is highly unusual for a defendant to repeatedly ignore court orders as Hunts Point management has done. “I’ve been doing this for 26 years, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Workers say the company failed to pay medical and dental bills, leaving many without health benefits. Some found there were no funds to pay them when they went to cash their paychecks. Others said they have waited in vain for months for urgently needed supplies for their patients.
“We’re still waiting,” said Wanda Caceres, a phlebotomist who has worked at the center for nine years. She said she submitted an order for syringes, gauze, Bandaids and tuberculosis testing kits in July. They never arrived. “We know they haven’t paid them,” she said. “I feel bad for the patients, but I feel bad for myself, too. I’m going to be without a job.”
The workers have not yet been told whether they will be eligible for unemployment, pensions or any other compensation, she added.
On Sept. 27, representatives from the state agency handed out fliers, informing counselors they have two weeks to transfer their patients to other Bronx methadone clinics.
“Four-hundred-seventeen patients in two weeks, that’s impossible,” Caceres said.
This story was updated on Oct. 4th.
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