Rehabilitation center to close after quarter-century

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Jean Hanna Clark Health Center, which rehabilitated thousands of injured workers in Las Vegas and from throughout the state for the past 25 years, is closing, Employers Insurance Co. of Nevada announced Monday.

Douglas Dirks, chief operating officer of the company, said the firm "is focusing its efforts on its profitable core insurance business." It expects the Las Vegas center to close in March and 94 workers to be laid off.

"We gave it the best try we could," Dirks said. "But it never contributed to the bottom line.

"We're in the insurance business, not the rehabilitation business," he added. "It's one of the tough decisions you make in private business."

When the center, at 1001 Shadow Lane, was built, no other facilities handled injured workers. But now, he said, there are many patient care operations in Las Vegas to provide rehabilitation.

Employers Insurance was formerly a quasi-state agency that provided coverage for workers injured on the job. It was privatized a year ago.

Danny Thompson, executive director of the Nevada AFL-CIO, called it an "unfortunate turn." He said this was one of the pitfalls of turning Employers Insurance into a private company.

The JHC Rehabilitation Center, he said, "was a premier center for rehabilitating injured workers." It is one of the few in the United States that had the facilities to help the worker get back on the job after being severely injured, he said.

"This is a sad day," Thompson said. "I hope it can be reopened by a new owner." But he said it also could probably end up as a parking lot.

Dirks said no decision has been made on what to do with the center. He said one option is selling it.

It was built in the 1970s during the administration of Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, who said it was "one of the most advanced in the country at that time." The best ideas were taken from top-rated facilities in Switzerland and Canada and incorporated into the Las Vegas center.

At the time Nevada was sending injured workers out of state for any rehabilitation.

Claude "Blackie" Evans, who was one of the directors of the Nevada Industrial Commission, a predecessor of Employers Insurance, said a group traveled all over the nation getting ideas. He called the closure a "sad day for the injured worker."

Evans, who later became executive director of the Nevada AFL-CIO and is now retired, said the center was recognized nationally for its work in putting injured workers back on the job.