Labor union sues Branstad over mental health closures
Source: Globe Gazette
ERIN MURPHY
DES MOINES | Iowa’s largest public employee labor union and 20 state lawmakers are suing the governor over the closure of two state-run mental health care facilities.
AFSCME Iowa Council 61 president Danny Homan announced the lawsuit Monday in a news release.
Republican Gov. Terry Branstad decided to close the state-run mental health facilities in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant, saying the state needs to shift toward community-based mental health care services and away from institutions. He halted funding to the facilities, which closed on June 30, the end of the state's fiscal year.
Snip: The union said state law requires the facilities to be open.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://globegazette.com/news/local/labor-union-sues-branstad-over-mental-health-closures/article_ac7e79f6-3456-5293-9a89-18da97ce2729.html
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services are much better for the client than institutional care and most of Iowa has already moved in that direction. The client is closer to family, supported by the community and gets more than custodial care.) However, if they just push the clients out of these institutions without creating the community services needed (group and foster homes, sheltered work shops, Day activity programs, access to better healthcare, smaller home like settings, etc.) then there is a problem. Then it is raygun all over again.
When we closed one of our large institutions in NE MN some of the staff were allowed to open group homes (state run) for clients. It was a way of employing the union workers at the institutions.
That particular institution was kept open by moving part of the prison population into it. Which was not seen as a good solution by the community residents. But it did give the prisons another way to house the inmates.
