Lawmakers urged to rethink plan to close Mental Health Institutes

DES MOINES - The sister of a patient at the mental health institute in Clarinda expressed her deep concern with the state's decision to close the facility, and state officials attempted to reassure the woman that her sister will be moved to a facility that will meet her treatment needs.

Janice Scalise, a former Iowan who lives in California, testified Monday to a panel of state lawmakers about the state's plan to close its mental health institutes in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant.

State Department of Human Services director Charles Palmer and mental health and disability services director Rick Schults also testified to lawmakers, saying they hope to find private facilities that will properly care for the displaced Clarinda and Mount Pleasant patients.

'We have brought together an entire team of people to find individual placement for people that can meet (the patient's) individual needs and make sure that individuals' health care can be met and that their psychiatric needs can be meet,” Schults said.

Scalise said her 63-year-old sister, Carol, has schizophrenia and has been a patient at various mental health institutes since 1983. Scalise said Carol has been at Clarinda twice, at the Cherokee Mental Health Institute once and at a private facility once while she participated with an experimental drug treatment. Scalise said Carol has been back at Clarinda since 2008.

'She feels like it's her home. She refers to it as her home,” Scalise told legislators. She added later, to reporters, 'Right now she feels very safe, very secure. All the staff, the nurse, everyone knows her. And she knows them. She has people around her that live there. So she's in a familiar situation. To take her out of that would be, I know, very stressful for her, and put her somewhere that she doesn't know who they are or what they're doing. She has a tendency to get upset about stuff like that. And I don't blame her. I would, too.”

Gov. Terry Branstad and Palmer decided to close the Clarinda and Mount Pleasant facilities citing aging infrastructure and treatment methods, and an inability to retain medical professionals.

Branstad proposed to close the two facilities June 30, the end of the fiscal year. This weekend, he and Republican state lawmakers reached an agreement to fund some of the services at the two facilities until December. Statehouse Democrats want to keep the facilities operating until June 30, 2016.

'We certainly are interested in providing the best mental health services to the people of Iowa,” Branstad said Monday during his weekly news conference. 'We've got a new, more modern delivery system that's designed to try to meet the individual needs of people that have mental health issues.”

Scalise echoed the concerns of others who have said the process is happening too rapidly. She said she has had difficulty getting answers from state officials.

She also expressed concerns with being forced to move Carol to a new facility.

'I'm not saying there isn't another place out there. I'm not saying that at all. If there is, I'd like to see it,” Scalise said. 'All I know is that she is thriving and happy. And to me, that says a lot.”