The Chronicle’s Allison Graham reports this week on tamatoledonews.com and Page 1 of the Toledo City Council was surprised at least at portion of a letter received from Iowa Human Services Director Charles Palmer.

He wrote, in part, No movement has been made on specific plans to resolve the future of the Iowa Juvenile Home property.

Just a couple of weeks ago The Chronicle published a story and letter which outlined proposals, invited comment and said the State of Iowa had agreed to hire a consultant to work with Mt. Pleasant and?Clarinda where state mental health institutes have been closed and concerning the IJH-Girls Training School property in Toledo.

Toledo (along with Mt. Pleasant and Clarinda, as well) need to be assured the government leaders in Des Moines are on the same page – is Palmer aware of the consultant hiring?

In a Sept., 2015, Chronicle editorial Palmer, along with Governor Terry Branstad, State Senator Steve Sodders and State Rep. Dean Fisher were urged, “It’s time to get going on the future of the Iowa Juvenile Home / State Training School for Girls campus in Toledo.”

At that time a 2014 report Iowa would face a nurse shortage by2020 was the basis for a call for leaders to consider the 27-acre campus in Toledo for a nursing school to help ward off the shortage.

(Des Moines Register story:

www.desmoinesregister.com/story/life/living-well/2014/05/04/nurse-shortage-education-retention-iowa-salute/8584153/).

Now, on Thursday, Feb. 11, The Waterloo Courier has reported the shortage is already here – “the shortage cuts a wide swath across the nursing category, embracing acute and emergency care, home health, rehabilitation and other areas.

(Waterloo Courier story:

www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/598336/Nursing-shortage-reaches-critical-stage-in-Iowa.html).

To repeat the reasons to consider the Toledo location:

Look what the IJH campus and Toledo and Tama area have to offer:

It currently is not in use, and as you are aware, there has been more than $20 million in infrastructure improvements made over the past few years.

It affords dormitory, educational and recreational space in a truly central location which can serve all of Iowa: Toledo is about a one-hour drive from Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Waterloo-Cedar Falls and Ames. Also close by are hospitals in Vinton, Marengo, Newton, Grundy Center, Marshalltown, Grinnell and Eldora.

The Toledo-Tama area currently is served by four clinics- MercyCare-Tama; Deer Creek Health Center (Grinnell Regional Hospital); Central Iowa Healthcare Clinic; plans to build a new $2 million McFarland Clinic in Toledo announced; and Meskwaki Health Services on the Settlement.

The new $45 million Phase I of Central Iowa Healthcare has been completed just 20 minutes away on the U.S. 30 Expressway.

The Iowa Veterans Home is similarly right down the road in Marshalltown – the model for state-care for veterans in the U.S.

There are, of course, a number of long-term care facilities in Tama County (five) and many more in surrounding counties as well as across Iowa.

Would not many of these existing medical care locations welcome nurses in-training who could be easily accessed from their central school in Toledo?

In addition, the Pheasant Ridge Care Facility (former Tama County Care Facility built in 1979) is soon to be vacant and could prove to be of additional use as an education-training facility.

The Iowa Juvenile Home / State Training School for Girls campus could well put Iowa in the forefront of addressing the critical need for nurses in the future.