Heaton says closing MHIs with no plan in place concerns him

By XIOMARA LEVSEN

Golden Triangle News Service

WASHINGTON ? The closing of the mental health institute in Mt. Pleasant was discussed during the legislative briefing Saturday morning at the Washington County Courthouse.

State legislators Rep. Jarad Klein (R) of District 78, Rep. David Heaton (R) of District 84, and Sen. Kevin Kinney (D) of District 39 attended the forum Saturday morning. Sen. Rich Taylor (D) of District 42 was absent because he was meeting with officials from the Mental Health Institute in Clarinda about the proposed closing of that facility.

Heaton spoke his concerns with the governor?s plan to close the Mt. Pleasant and Clarinda Mental Health Institutes.

?I?m very concerned because the governor?s proposed this closing with no plan in place, ? Heaton said. ?Twenty-five percent of our mental health beds are occupied by people who could go home but are languishing in kind of an asylum type of situation because our counties don?t have the living places nor the support to stabilize these chronically mentally ill individuals. I feel very strongly that this has to happen first before we close the institutes.?

Heaton has met with the governor and Chuck Palmer, the director of the mental health institutes in Iowa, and will meet with Palmer again Monday, he said.

?I feel a clock ticking because April 1 is coming,? Heaton said.

Once the employees go elsewhere to work it would be hard to get the staff back to keep institutes open, he said.

Richard Gilmore asked the legislators a question on behalf of his wife, Dr. Robin Plattenberger. He said Plattenberger would like to know if the two mental health institutes are closed where a bed would be available for a person who needs mental health care.

?She has spent two, three, four hours looking for a bed to put a patient,? Gilmore said. ?The end game of this is, and there?s always one of them for a doctor, they end up admitting them through the ER ?our most expensive place to be seen anywhere. You go to the clinic, you get seen for $150. You go to the ER, it?s $700 to $800 and if you?re there overnight; it racks up. ER charges are exorbitant.?

?You make some excellent points, thank you,? Heaton said.

At a community meeting about the proposed closing of the institutes, Heaton said a sheriff (Henry County Sheriff Rich McNamee) in his district said two of his deputies had to deliver a person to Sioux City, which was 312 miles away. The person was evaluated and had to come back to appear in front of the judge 48 hours later. If the person needed more mental health care, that person had to go back to Sioux City.

?So by the time they got through the patient could have driven 2,400 miles during this person?s care,? Heaton said. ?You can go to Los Angeles in 2,000 miles. I mean it?s just a joke, so I?ve got the bill that sets up a bed-finding system. We?re looking at a bill in the House that would plan for allowing a private company to deliver people in the state to provide the transportation rather than the sheriff?s offices and deputies. There?s just a lot of thinking going on about all this stuff about the availability of care but you asked a big question. That is, ?Governor when you close these beds, where are the beds?? That?s what I?m kind of hoping they realize and to give us some time during this transition.?

Kinney said he liked the bill that allows for private transportation of people.

?I?ve been in western Iowa up by Fort Dodge. I was taking a psychiatric patient to Cherokee at that time when the University of Iowa told me they had this (patient) sedated enough to allow me to get there but (the patient was) kicking out my windows in the back seat of my patrol car,? Kinney said. ?At 3 o? clock in the morning I could not find any law enforcement up there or anybody to help me. Finally they called a state trooper (who) came out. They called a state trooper that lived along the highway to come out and he helped hold this guy down. Then they sent a doctor out to sedate this person. You?re putting law enforcement in a real precarious position when you?re hauling these people, especially if you?re by yourself.?