HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 46

BY  HEATON, HANSON, KEARNS, COHOON, KLEIN, and SANDS

A Resolution to recognize the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute on the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding.

   WHEREAS, in 1855, the newly formed state of Iowa was struggling to provide the amenities, facilities, and services that a state owes its citizens; and
   WHEREAS, in that year, Iowa began construction of a facility to house the mentally ill; and
   WHEREAS, built at a cost of $400,000, the facility, then called the Iowa Lunatic Asylum, admitted its first patient on February 26, 1861; and
   WHEREAS, although that original name seems harsh to modern ears, the asylum embodied the latest thinking in humane patient care and treatment, and was one of the first institutions built on the “Kirkbride Plan”; and
   WHEREAS, decades passed, treatments improved, and the old asylum was renamed the Mount Pleasant State Hospital and similar facilities were built throughout the state; and
   WHEREAS, today the old asylum is long closed, and the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute provides Twenty-first Century inpatient care for psychiatric and substance abuse problems; and
   WHEREAS, at the Institute, the Center for Psychiatric Care is accredited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, while the Iowa Residential Treatment Center is licensed by the Iowa Department of Public Health; NOW THEREFORE,

   BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, That the House of Representatives honors the long tradition of patient care at the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute and congratulates the Institute on its sesquicentennial anniversary.