Proposed Cuts Lead to Closure of Knoxville Mental Institution

The state’s Department of Mental Health is using continued budget pressure as justification for restructuring the agency. The plan moves away from state-run psychiatric institutions, and the first to go is in Knoxville.

The facility slated to close next year has fewer than 90 patients. By comparison, in the 1970s, Lakeshore Mental Health Institute housed 2,300 people.

Mental Health Commissioner Doug Varney says psychiatric drugs have improved to the point that most people can be treated without long inpatient stays.

Many of Lakeshore’s 360 employees will be given preference at a privately run institution nearby. But Varney says some of them will be out of work.

“I hate that for them. These are good people. They’ve done a good job. But you know we really have to do what’s in the best interest for the patient. And frankly if people can be treated in their home, in their community, it’s a matter of common sense.”

Varney says it’s preferable for patients to stay where they live, but he adds that being committed to a state institution carries a stigma that could be avoided.

For those long-term patients housed at Lakeshore, such as the criminally insane, the state plans to move them to its Nashville facility. The overhaul of the agency, however, still must be approved by the legislature.