by: Ella Adams
Posted: Apr 28, 2025 / 02:37 PM EDT
Updated: Apr 30, 2025 / 02:26 PM EDT
House budget amendments aim to take facility’s closure off the table
BOSTON (SHNS) – The legislative response to protect Pappas Rehabilitation Center for Children is manifesting in House budget amendments, which come as community members warn the state is not adhering to its promised pause on the facility’s closure.
House Democrats funded public health hospitals — including Pappas, Tewksbury Hospital and Lemuel Shattuck Hospital — at $217 million in their fiscal 2026 proposal, an amount House Ways and Means believes is enough to maintain operations at Pappas.
While Healey’s budget proposes $206.7 million for the account and would close Pappas, the governor instituted a pause on the closure following statewide backlash and tapped a stakeholder working group to determine how to proceed.
Pappas staff and families argue the state isn’t adhering to the pause. Canton Rep. Bill Galvin has responded by proposing two amendments meant as protective measures for the facility.
“I know the governor said she was taking a second look. I fear the commissioner is taking steps to close the place. And some of the people, parents of children, have told me that they’re getting notices that they should look at other places to place their children,” Galvin said.
“They think the administration is slowly trying to depopulate the facility so then it can close,” he continued.
One amendment (#1164) has more than 50 cosponsors. It requires Pappas to “maintain at least 40 beds serving children ages 7-22.” It would also include a review of the campus and services “to determine what, if any, investments should be made in the facility and/or campus to better serve current and future patients.”
Another Galvin amendment (#97) creates a legislative commission to investigate and study the future of Pappas while keeping it open. The commission would review finances, programs, pediatric services and infrastructure, and include representatives from the Legislature, Pappas, the community and the administration.
Sen. Paul Feeney, whose district includes Pappas, said conversations are ongoing within and outside of the Healey-tapped working group. The group has met once.
Feeney echoed Galvin’s concerns that families and staff say they’re seeing changes in Pappas operations, despite the pause.
“It’s on our radar screen,” Feeney said. “I think that’s the reason why we saw amendment[s] in the House budget and a reason why we are right now preparing language in the Senate budget.”
“Let’s continue with the pause. Let’s make sure that we’re digging into this and coming up with a plan for the future. But at the same time, let’s keep the census where it is. Let’s not be discharging kids at a quicker rate than normal, [let’s] keep it status quo until we can figure out a plan going forward,” Feeney said.
When Healey paused the closure of Pappas in February, she did not say how long the pause would last but said she wanted to bring stakeholders together to review the care offered at Pappas “and make recommendations on the best path forward to ensure we are providing the highest quality of care with the resources at hand.”
DPH Commissioner Robbie Goldstein has maintained Pappas is discharging and taking patients in at a routine rate.
“A pause, to me, means we go back to where we were in December of 2024, the facility continues to operate exactly the way it was operating in December, right now in April of 2025,” Goldstein said at an April 7 Ways and Means budget hearing.
“If we want to continue the operations as they were in 2023 and 2024, that means we need to admit and discharge patients,” Goldstein said in response to concerns about accelerated discharge rates. Goldstein said the discharges and admissions at Pappas are occurring at a routine rate.
Galvin and Feeney held a Pappas Community Forum on April 16, during which several Pappas staff and families said their experiences don’t reflect a pause in closure.
“We’ve been contacted numerous times by email, random unscheduled calls at home, insisting we speak with the discharge committee about plans to discharge Kyran, who, at 15…is not even eligible for discharge, age-wise or medically,” Traci Conners, whose son Kyran has been at Pappas for six years, said.
Families and advocates have long said the facilities offered as alternatives to Pappas do not have the medical and educational services Pappas students require.
“At our discharge meeting last week, we were told by one of the senior management that we were being too critical of these facilities and that we should not be comparing them to Pappas, but to Westfield Hospital — because, in his words, when Pappas closes, not if, Kyran would be moved to Westfield Hospital,” Conners said.
Jen Ford, who has taught at Pappas for 14 years, said she’s seeing students discharged at a quicker pace.
“They thought they could quiet us with a pause that isn’t really a pause. That they could soothe the public outrage while quietly discharging student after student, patient after patient,” Ford said.
“These students are being rushed out of here and they are not admitting at the rate that they are trying to discharge. They are trying to run out the clock,” Ford added.
On Feb. 12, Commissioner Goldstein said there were 36 patients at Pappas, several of whom were over the age of 22 or about to hit that age, when providers work to find new placements for them. Goldstein said he expects there to be around 25 remaining children who could fit into a hospital wing in Westfield, where the administration has proposed students be relocated in the fall. In early April, there were 32 patients at Pappas.
Original Story: https://www.wwlp.com/news/massachusetts/pappas-supporters-fear-closure-pause-may-not-hold-up/