Marlborough resident Al Lanzetta has been protesting the closure of an acute care facility at the Castle Point VA Medical Center in Wappingers Falls. In addition, he recently collected about 100 signatures of seniors at the Marlborough Community Center.

 

“People were very touched and didn’t know anything about it.” he said. “It is very important to the Veterans because the acute care unit helps people who have drug issues or are suicidal. Overall it’s there to help our Veterans in need right from the get go.”

 

Lanzetta sent the supporting letters and signatures to the Veterans Health Administration in Tarrytown, NY.

 

Lanzetta said this special care unit had about 20 beds, “and nobody knows why they closed it. They didn’t give any explanation.” He said everybody assumes this is due to the wave of cuts coming from Washington DC.

 

“It’s like they are throwing a shotgun at everything without doing it the right way, like asking directors of facilities what they think can be done to improve it, but they threw a hand grenade at it; that’s the problem,” he said.

 

Lanzetta protested across from St Mary’s Church in Marlboro with a sign saying ‘Protect Veterans, Fund Castle Point.’ He said this is an important issue for him.

 

“You know when I get a hold of something I just don’t let it go,” Lanzetta said, adding that he heard about this at a press conference hosted by Rep. Pat Ryan, who is a Veteran. “Veterans said that this care unit saved their lives and if it wasn’t for this unit they don’t know if they would be here because they went through rough times.”

 

Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa is a retired Marine and attended Ryan’s press conference, pushing to not close the acute care facility, saying  “this makes absolutely no sense. The Hudson Valley has such a rich culture of military history dating way back and these men and women that served our country have earned that right to have the government take care of them for the issues they have, most likely from serving in the military. I think it’s a sad day for the Hudson Valley and the Veterans to do away with that acute section at Castle Point because you are just opening up Pandora’s box. They will start with that and eventually they are going to try to shut down Castle Point and that is why it is so important to fight them on this.”

 

Figueroa said, “If you look at the savings, its not about money, it’s abut human life. The acute side deals with depression, post traumatic stress, alcoholism, and it all comes from people’s time in the service.”

 

Figueroa said when a young man or woman signs up to defend our rights, “when they come back home we should take care of them. I think this closure is unconscionable.”

 

Rep. Pat Ryan said the closure of the facility is UN-American.

 

“It breaks the soleum trust between Veterans, who have risked their lives, and the American people, and that’s what happened, and that’s what that is,” he said. “It’s twenty beds with patients in mental health crisis and those who need detox and now they have nowhere to go, it’s just outrageous.”

 

Ryan represents 40,000 Veterans in his district and Castle Point is the only facility like it between Albany and Montrose in Westchester County.

 

Mark Cozzupoli, Director of Veteran Services for Ulster County, said, “This closure is unacceptable for our Veterans because we need to be removing barriers to care, not creating more. We are aware of this closure and we’ve already had to adjust as we seek ways to continue serving our local at-risk Veterans. Further, this closure puts strain on all other resources necessary to serve the thousands of local Veterans in need.”

 

A call to the Public Relations department at Castle Point for comment was not returned by deadline.