NORWICH - Fox Hospital’s announcement earlier this month that it would cease providing psychiatric services by July 1 has put officials of Chenango County Mental Hygiene Services into a tailspin.

The department has been able to rely on the Oneonta-based hospital’s 28 available beds and after-hours crisis intervention center for the past 17 years. Director Mary Ann Spryn said the department receives approximately 400 crisis calls a month, and has regularly occupied up to four of Fox’s available beds.

Mental health patients in Chenango, Otsego, Delaware and Schoharie counties will be affected by the closure. All four counties have been in discussion with the New York State Office of Mental Health, Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, United Health Services of Binghamton and another unnamed Broome County facility. Spyrn said OMH has requested Fox remain open through September.

UHS has declined to service the areas. No other concrete decisions have been made. Bassett Hospital, located an hour from Norwich, has 20 adult beds in its psychiatric unit and no adolescent beds.

“The state is trying to keep them in operation until September because we need to discover our options for the future,” Spyrn said. Fox Hospital announcements have said the units were closing because of financial and staffing problems. Syprn said the hospital has been unable to staff enough psychiatrists to run the unit, and contracting with independent doctors has been cost-prohibitive.

“The biggest loss for us will be after-hours crises intervention. Our staff used to do this and it involved a lot of unplanned and all night over time. It would be inadequate for us to go back to that system,” Spryn told members of the county’s health and human services committee on June 26.

Without adequate beds in the region to rely on, children and youths who require immediate hospitalization may have to be transported to Buffalo, away from their families. “That’s takes the family out of the treatment process,” Spryn said.

Committee member James B. Bays, D-Smyrna, asked whether the number of mentally ill patients was increasing. Spryn said the problem “has been growing over the years.” The Norwich-based office provides crisis care services to, on average, about four patients per week during the daytime hours.