Salt Lake Tribune
Provo Canyon Behavioral Hospital is owned by Universal Health Services. The Pennsylvania-based company also owns the youth treatment business, Provo Canyon School.
Universal Health Services has been awarded more than $143,000 in federal funding to offer telehealth services to rural Utah. The company received the grant despite allegations of widespread abuse at Provo Canyon School, one of several youth treatment facilities it owns in the state.
The money comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Distance Learning and Telemedicine” program, which is intended to help Americans overcome the unique challenges the COVID-19 pandemic poses in rural areas.
SB 127, sponsored by Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, would greatly enhance the oversight of the state’s lucrative “troubled-teen” industry, and would place limits on the use of restraints, drugs and isolation rooms. The legislation comes after former residents, including celebrity Paris Hilton, began speaking publicly about abuse and mistreatment they say they endured at facilities in Utah and elsewhere.
Mitt Romney’s close call, Utah’s troubled-teen industry and Wall Street’s quest to scoop up water on this week’s ‘Behind the Headlines’
Join Salt Lake Tribune journalists on KCPW’s news roundup.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Colorado River flows into Lake Powell near Hite Marina on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021.
| Feb. 11, 2021, 8:39 p.m.
Sen. Mitt Romney’s close call during the Jan. 6 Capitol siege gets a spotlight during this week’s impeachment proceedings. With the backing of Paris Hilton, Utah lawmakers seek to reform the state’s “troubled-teen” industry. And Wall Street looks to commodify water in the West.
KUER
Yes, 2020 was the year of COVID. But here’s a timeline of the other interesting stuff that happened in Utah last year, too.
January: Impeachment, Sundance and Condomgate
Jon Reed
The Sundance Film Festival drew more than 100,000 people to Park City Utah.
The year began with the end of the controversial Southern Red Sands Mine project in Kanab, and by the middle of January there was just one thing at the top of people’s minds: Impeachment.
It was also this month that the Utah Department of Health faced its first crisis of the year: Condomgate. Gov. Gary Herbert quickly blocked the HIV prevention campaign that sent out thousands of condoms with sex-positive, Utah-themed packaging. But his plan to protect Utahns from such tastlessness wasn’t entirely effective full sets of the profalactics with messages like “Greatest Sex on Earth and “Explore Utah’s Caves” appeared on Ebay days later.