DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — If Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare closes on June 30, the Dayton region's hospitals, jails and court system will be jam-packed with the mentally ill, supporters of the psychiatric hospital said Friday, March 7, at the Dayton Convention Center.

With officials from the Ohio Department of Mental Health in attendance, mental health workers, patients' family members, county judges, commissioners and others blasted Gov. Ted Strickland's decision to close the facility on Wayne Avenue to save $13 million in the state's next $52.3 billion two-year budget.

"The state will survive this economic shortfall, but the mentally ill will be paying it forward permanently," said Joe Szoke, director of the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board for Montgomery County.

ODMH Deputy Director Jim Ignelzi spoke of the $31 million in cuts his department faces in the next two years and the "painful decisions" regarding Twin Valley. But the crowd was unforgiving.

"I think we all agree cuts will have to be made (in the state budget), but for that to be on the backs of our most vulnerable in society doesn't seem right to me," said Keith Achor, vice president of patient services at Upper Valley Medical Center in Troy.

Unless Strickland relents, the state plans to start shipping Twin Valley's patients to psychiatric hospitals in Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo by the end of this month.