Governor ignorning needs of vulnerable

To the editor:

Every Iowan should be upset that Gov. Terry Branstad thinks so little of Iowans with mental illness that he failed to even mention that he was proposing to close two out of four mental health facilities in his Condition of the State message a few days before the announcement. In the last few years, private and municipal hospitals all over the state have been closing their mental health units. How many more closings are in the future?

The state facilities have specially designed programs requiring the most intense, secure and long term inpatient services, not available in any other facility in the state. Clarinda has the only nursing home/mental health program in the state. Mount Pleasant has the only combination mental health/chemical dependency program. The 113 mental health beds at Mount Pleasant and Clarinda provide needed services. Everyone should demand that Branstad and the Department of Human Services have plans to create comparable replacement programs.

We are waiting to hear if the governor is going to ignore the need or provide appropriately designed treatment programs. It would have been preferable that the governor give reasons for closing these two facilities, as well as his solution. With no solution, our prisons will be filled with more mental health patients. We definitely do not need the secrecy before and following the closing of the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo. We all have the right to know how our most vulnerable are being treated.

Julie Stewart Ziesman

Waukee