Community Care, Inc. to Close Care Facility for Mentally Ill
Community Care, Inc., the owner of Charlotte Care Facility's Persons With Mental Illness unit in Charlotte, Iowa, has opted to close the facility, but will continue to operate its residential care facility.
Recently, Community Care, Inc. came under fire from the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals for two instances in which the Person's with Mental Illness (PMI) unit was fined $33,000. The PMI unit was fined $15,000 in June 2008 for an incident in which facility employees restrained a patient, who later died. In November 2008, the PMI unit was fined $18,000 for an incident in which a patient allegedly sexually harassed a female employee of Community Care who transported the resident to an appointment by herself. The fines were tripled because the violations had occurred previously in the past year. The facility was given a conditional license and was not allowed to take in any new patients.
The twenty year old facility is being closed because "the money is not available to us to adequately serve the people who desperately need this service", according to William Bonnes, Chief Executive Officer of Community Care, Inc. Bonnes said that the unit receives more acutely ill residents and more staff is required, which raises costs.
