...there's no way anyone could have predicted this.

Lakeshore's closing has been clearly visible for more than a decade. When Nashville opened their new mental health facility, complete with a swimming pool, several of us asked about getting a new facility in East TN and the response was a head shake. For years, Lakeshore has been left to crumble and sold to those more interested in parking lots than historic buildings while most potential patients are referred elsewhere. The consumers who remain in Lakeshore are the least likely to have family, friends, homes, or communities. These consumers will be on the street or in the shelters. The forensics patients will likely be placed back in the jails.

The immediate result is that the people who most need the medical care, advocacy, and basic needs that Lakeshore once provided, are and will be subjected to the homeless hate that dominates the KNS comments section. I just wonder how long the future of the property will be the subject of bitter fighting before the developers cannibalize it.

There is a difference in the genetics and the name brands. And with the psychiatrist it can cause problems. What is important us that the patient have close follow-up care with the physician and when the patient is at the ER that can't be the case. If the patient had close follow-up at a clinic that was guaranteed it would be different.

I'm taking a medication now that isn't on the $4 list but as a name brand used to be $200-plus per month. I can get it at Belew's Drug Store for $8.40. At Kroger, where I get my $4 scripts it's $60plus, or was the last time I checked. I had been on it when I had health insurance to gteat success, but gave it up when I lost insurance until it went generic. And what i'd been doing wasn't working very well. I had horrible side effects for the first two or three months I was on it that I hadn't had when I took the name brand back when I had insurance. My doctor kept telling that it would get better, and I knew the medication had helped tremendously the first time around, so I toughed it out. Without access to the doc, I don't know that I would have.

It could very well be. Again from my own recent experience, I was having a minor problem with my psychiatric medications and the nurse practitioner at the clinic said that she didn't feel comfortable dealing with my combination of medications. The clinic had recently list it's psychiatrist and hadn't yet replaced him. He has been replaced now, and I will be able to confer with the psychiatrist soon. In the meantime, the minor problem appears to have worked itself out. Patience is an amazing thing. Something that it had taken me over 25 years of dealing with a psychiatrist and various types of psychotropic medications to learn. And I'm not always good at it. Plus my condition isn't major. It's basically routine and easily manageable. Yet even I take four different medications and require regular visits with a psychiatrist and a social worker. I call them my reality checks.