A union leader says employees at the state-run Mental Health Institutes in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant Iowa have been told lay-off notices are going out soon and the facilities will close a few weeks before the current state budgeting year ends on June 30th. Governor Terry Branstad says he’s “not sure about the details” of layoffs at the two institutions.
Senator Mark Segebart (SEHG-uh-bart), a Republican from Vail who used to be a Crawford County Supervisor, says he’s “not against” what Branstad envisions, but Segebart says counties aren’t ready to “make the jump” yet and provide the services that the Mental Health Institutes have provided.
County sheriffs in southern Iowa say they’re either spending far more transporting people with acute mental illness to the two Mental Health Institutes in northern Iowa that are accepting patients, or they’re putting patients in local emergency rooms until space in a hospital psych ward opens up. The two state-run facilities in southern Iowa are no longer accepting patients and officials are trying to transfer those who currently are being treated in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant to private facilities.
