Michigan to Sell One of Detroit’s Last Mental Health Hospitals

In a cost cutting move, Michigan officials announced this week that the state will sell and "eventually shutter" one of Metro Detroit's "last mental health hospitals," the Detroit News reports. State mental health spokesperson Geralyn Lasher said that the Northville Regional Psychiatric Center has been put up for sale "immediately," although the building will remain intact for at least three years. Edward McNeil, a spokesperson for the union that represents workers at the hospital, which houses roughly 300 patients, said that workers were told Nov. 5 that the facility would close in "six months to three years." The sale of the hospital is part of a series of spending cuts the state is undertaking due to the slowing economy. One state official estimated that the hospital's land could be worth $65 million. Mental health advocates criticized the decision, saying that closing Northville will compound the problems created by other closures in the 1990s. According to Mark Reinstein, director for the Mental Health Association in Michigan, the state has shut down 12 mental health facilities since 1991, with another to close at the end of the year (Garrett, Detroit News, 11/9).