OSKALOOSA, Iowa (AP) – Another Iowa hospital is closing its inpatient psychiatric care unit. Mahaska Health Partnership Chief Executive Officer Jay Christensen said Wednesday that the Oskaloosa hospital discharged its last psychiatric inpatient Monday.

He says the unit has been losing about $500,000 a year, in large part because many psychiatric patients have to stay in the hospital for weeks or months after they’re ready to leave, because nursing homes or other residential facilities won’t take them. He says many of the patients are physically aggressive.

The Oskaloosa psychiatric unit is the latest of several closed over about the past several years in Iowa. The state closed its Clarinda and Mount Pleasant psychiatric hospitals in 2015. Community hospitals in Creston, Fort Dodge, Iowa Falls, Keokuk and West Union also closed their inpatient psychiatric units.