Could the long-closed Jellico hospital become a mental-health hospital?
The Next Chapter Addiction and Rehabilitation Services CEO Anthony Carter and Cindy Hamby appeared before the Jellico Board of Mayor and Aldermen to pitch the idea on Feb. 19.
“What we want to do is we want to let you guys know that we’re interested in leasing or purchasing the hospital from the city,” Carter said. “What we would like to do is not turn it into a hospital. It’s obvious, over the years. It’s really hard to keep a hospital open there. But what we would like to do is turn it into a mental-health hospital, which is very feasible. I’ve already started the CON, which is the certificate-of-need application, but I can’t submit that until we have a lease or anything like that with that for that location. I’ve just got the paperwork initiated and started because it’s a long process. But I’ve done some research. The closest mental-health hospitals, there’s a small one in Knoxville. Then you’re looking out towards East Tennessee, out to Kingston.”
The Next Chapter LLP is based in Whitley City, Kentucky, Carter said.
“Then the rest are out towards Nashville, so Central Tennessee, East Tennessee here would be perfect for that area,” Carter said. “And also we can be credentialed in Kentucky and Tennessee, so we could even draw up towards up into Kentucky that way. With that being said, currently right now with our facility that we have, we do mental health and substance-use disorders. So we do drug addiction primarily, but we also do a lot of mental health. We’ve got 150 clients in Whitley City, Kentucky right now. We’ve got about 56, 57 employees that we have. If we could get the hospital and turn it into a mental health — that’s considering that the state will approve that, considering that you guys would allow the lease — we could open the mental-health hospital. And off the bat, we’d need about 25 employees. The employees would be therapists, nurse practitioners, case managers, residential staff, cooks for the kitchen, those types of things. The folks we have employed right now, the least-paid people that we have is $13 an hour. Our therapists make anywhere from $70,000 to $80,000 a year. Our case managers make about $38,000 a year. We pay very well. We take good care of our employees, and being from the area, I feel like this is part of my home because I’m from Williamsburg just up the street. Our folks need help, and if we’re not going to help them, who’s going to? I’m tired of seeing folks from out of state and other places like that, take advantage, do whatever they do to our people. And Cindy and I are both of the mindset that we can help our people, and we are helping our people here in southeast Kentucky. And we want to do the same thing down here.”
Jellico Mayor Sandy Terry noted that the board meeting on Feb. 19 was the first time she was hearing the information that Carter presented.
“We’ve got all the bases covered,” Carter said. “We’re just waiting on you guys to consider, ask us more information. Look us up. We’ve got a webpage. We’re on Facebook. We’re on Instagram, TikTok. We’re on all that stuff like that. We’ve been in business for four years. We’ve been growing the entire time. We do everything by the book. We’re faith-based. This facility would be faith-based also. It’s just what we’re about.”
Terry said after the meeting to the LaFollette Press that she is currently talking with two groups about possibly opening up the emergency room at the hospital.
“We’re business partners,” Carter said. “Cindy had worked in addiction care before. I worked in law enforcement. I retired from the FBI and saw that law enforcement wasn’t really working that well for helping folks. We got a lot of people off the street, but once we took a dealer down, two more popped up in their place. We didn’t really help anybody. I want to help the folks of southeast Kentucky and northeast Tennessee.”