When Governor Terry Branstad released his budget earlier this week, one aspect that he didn’t include was continuing to fund two of the four remaining state-ran mental health facilities in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant.

Greene County Mental Health Coordinator Diane Jackson says there’s already a shortage of psychiatric beds for those who need acute care and if the two facilities are shut-down, then that’s even fewer places for people with mental illness to get treatment.  Jackson notes that the Mount Pleasant facility is especially important because it is a dual diagnosis center for mental health and substance abuse.  There are two psychiatric units near Greene County which are at St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital in Carroll and Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames.  The closest state facility is in Cherokee.

To be admitted for mental health care, Jackson states that the individual must be medically cleared at a local hospital along with the county attorney signing off.  Then, the local hospital calls around the state until a facility is found that can take the individual, which sometimes can be a lengthy road trip.  If an emergency occurs, where an individual needs acute care, the main criteria that is used is if the individual is in imminent danger of hurting themselves or others, then they need to be admitted right away.

Ever since mental health regionalized a couple of years ago, the state has provided funding for them by using a statewide levy of $47.28 per county and if a county’s levy rate is lower than that, then the state provides money to make up that difference.  Jackson notes that Dallas County’s levy rate was set at about $20 per person whereas the other three counties of Greene, Guthrie and Audubon each had higher rates and so the state brought them down to their rate.  However, this fiscal year neither the governor’s budget nor the Department of Human Service’s budget has any kind of backfill funds in place for any of the regions.

Jackson explains how they are trying to come up with ideas to help with treatment options for individuals with mental health issues.

“The regions have been working very diligently and trying to develop crisis services that would maybe prevent some inpatient, psychiatric care where we could maybe help people before they got to that critical stage where they needed acute care.”

She hopes that legislators will help to support the state facilities and keep them open.