Sitting on a ledge in front of Kingston City Hall, Peace Lovejoy said that when she went recently to WMC HealthAlliance Hospital, and said she was suicidal and needed help, she hit a wall.

“They gave me a Tylenol for my headache and then told me there weren’t any beds for me,” Lovejoy said.

Lovejoy headlined the “Speak Out” Rally in Midtown, pushing back against WMC HealthAlliance for essentially erasing much of its Kingston-based mental health and detox programs.

About 40 local officials and medical professionals attended.

In April, 40 beds dedicated to mental health treatment and 20 detox beds were removed from the HealthAlliance campus on Mary’s Avenue to prepare for a possible surge in COVID-19 cases.

Those resources were never brought back.

Local officials said now that the change appears to be permanent, a promise by HealthAlliance to restore the resources was clearly broken.

Lovejoy was joined by several Kingston-area leaders and health professionals who are furious with the healthcare provider.

“So they replaced 60 beds with 15,” mental health technician Gabriel Baez said to the group of about 40 in slickers under umbrellas. “They put them in Mid-Hudson [Regional Hospital]. That’s Dutchess County. Dutchess County, however, also can send patients there. So those 15 beds aren’t guaranteed for our people. Can our people get some damn help?”

Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan said in his talks with HealthAlliance executives over the past few months, he has not received straight answers about the treatment programs’ futures in Kingston.

That led him to this rally, alongside Lovejoy, asking the public to initiate their own conversations with HealthAlliance executives and state administrators.

“If a community’s goal is just to have prosperity and make money, that community is like a city with broken down walls,” Lovejoy said.

Ryan reported that drug-related deaths have nearly doubled this year over last, and suicides from March to July have doubled from the same time period last year.

When asked whether they have plans to bring treatment resources back to Kingston, a WMC HealthAlliance spokesperson responded that mental health and addiction treatment is improving, citing HealthAlliance data.

“Wait times for inpatient psychiatric beds for adults presenting to the HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus this spring were in fact lower (18 hours) than wait times in the months leading up to the height of the COVID-19 (22 hours) surge earlier this year,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “And the relocation of services from the Mary’s Avenue Campus to MidHudson Regional Hospital.”