State officials plan to close one of 10 wards at Mayview State Hospital by Aug. 15, reflecting a trend to serve more patients in supervised apartments or other community settings.

The move will reduce the mental hospital's beds from 285 to 255 and the money saved from closing the ward will be used for community mental health services, said Rich Kuppelweiser, Mayview's chief executive officer.

Officials are developing plans to downsize Mayview by another 30 beds and would like to close another ward within a year, though those plans have not received final approval, Mr. Kuppelweiser said.

Mayview accepts patients from community hospitals in Allegheny, Beaver, Greene, Lawrence and Washington counties. While those counties will have fewer beds available for referrals, officials believe that by expanding community mental health services, they will be able to reduce admissions to Mayview and shorten its waiting list.

Mr. Kuppelweiser noted that the downsizings would not affect the hospital's 70-bed forensic unit for criminal offenders. He also said there are no plans to lay off workers.

He and other officials outlined the changes to a sometimes skeptical audience of more than 200 Mayview employees, family members of patients, users of mental health services and others. Yesterday's meeting at the Radisson Hotel, Green Tree, was to provide an update on a plan to improve community mental health services in the counties served by Mayview.

Officials emphasized that patients are not being forced to leave the hospital and that they are taking steps to meet patients' needs and preferences.

Mental hospitals have been downsizing for decades in Pennsylvania and other states, in part because of improved medications and services that allow more people to be served in the community.

But some listeners questioned whether more should be done to protect Mayview patients being moved to community settings.

Sheila Angel, a Mayview social worker, said that while patients have been asked where they wanted to live in the community, some later "were encouraged to go to different places."

Mary Fleming, chief executive officer of Allegheny HealthChoices, which is developing the plan to improve behavioral health care in the five-county area, noted that patients and their families may not agree on every issue.

"Our goal is to maximize the preference of the client," she said, saying officials were working to move people where they wanted to go.

Bob Arvin, a user of mental health services from Freedom, Beaver County, asked what was being done to educate neighborhood residents that people with mental illnesses would be moving in.

Ms. Fleming said that she wanted service providers to address that issue and said that more work needed to be done with neighborhood groups and elected officials.

"We can't pretend there aren't fears out there," said Shirlee Hopper-Scherch, executive director of the Peer Support and Advocacy Network, which provides programs and services to people with mental illness.

But she noted that many people with serious mental illnesses already are living successfully in the community.

Some also questioned whether standards should be in place to ensure that community services are adequate.

"You're looking at potential risks," said Louis Torlidas, of Shadyside. Without the supervision available at the hospital, he questioned whether his uncle, a Mayview patient who has schizophrenia, would take his medicine.

Some patients could end up homeless or in jail, Mr. Torlidas said.

Mr. Torlidas and others also wondered if the state intends to shut down the hospital. Harrisburg State Hospital shut its doors earlier this year, and the state also closed a number of other mental hospitals in the 1980s and '90s.

State officials denied any current plans to shut down the facility.