BOISE - A Boise treatment facility, which calls itself a "center for teens in crisis", is unexpectedly closing its doors.
Sixteen patients at Intermountain Residential Treatment Center will have to be moved to another facility that services teens with mental and behavioral issues.
The treatment facility has been given until February to fix a number of problems found by Health and Welfare or lose its license, but we found out the center has already decided to close.
One mother we talked to says the center is not a safe place for kids.
"Its been devastating as a mother, for our family, for Kassandra more than anything that's the main concern the pain and suffering she's been going through since she was six years old,? says Heather Evers, mom of patient.
Heather Evers is talking about her daughter Kassendra. A 14-year old Washington girl who was once abused by a family friend while on vacation away from home.
From that she suffers emotionally and is a danger to herself.
So to get psychiatric help her family sent her to the Intermountain Residential Treatment Center in Boise.
The teen has been there for a month -- but will be leaving at the end of the week.
"We got a call Friday that they are shutting down the RTC program and that all patients are to be transferred in the next three weeks,? says Evers.
Evers says the closure is a surprise. But recently she found out the facility is operating on only a provisional license -- with the threat of losing it altogether.
"The treatment center had a riot situation back in July of this year which we responded to after complaints, after police had arrived and we accessed the situation of the treatment center and determined there were many deficiency that needed to be corrected,? said Ross Mason, Dept. of Health and Welfare.
So Intermountain Treatment Center was put on a provisional license -- and given from July of this year to February of next year to make the necessary changes.
"They found a number of issues, excessive physical and chemical restraint, peer on peer assaults, staff abuse, assaults of another nature, improper treatment plans, a lot of things, a number of serious issues,? says Mason.
We talked to the facility's CEO, Richard Bangert, and when asked about the issues he said there was no comment.
Bangert sent a letter to Health and Welfare Tuesday morning, saying the center was closing to re-engineer programs and complete a remodeling project.
It also said it was imperative to interrupt services no later than December of this year.
"They are serious problems, they are serious no question about it and the facility will need to fix those."
There are 16 juveniles, between the ages of 12 and 18 that live at the treatment center. Health and Welfare says their problems range from assaults to aggressiveness, eating disorders, and drug use.
Psychiatric Solutions Inc. owns Intermountain Residential Treatment Center, along with 72 other facilities around the nation.
This closure only affects the treatment center and has nothing to do with intermountain hospital.
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