State Rep. Jimmie Lee of Kentucky received the Jacob K. Javits Award for Public Service February 23 from APA and the Kentucky Psychiatric Medical Association. The award ceremony, held before a standing-room-only crowd in the state capitol rotunda in Frankfort, celebrated Lee's 18 years of strong leadership for improved mental health services in Kentucky.
The Jacob K. Javits Award recognizes a state or federal official who has made a significant contribution to the care of people with mental illness. "I'm just thrilled that people thought I deserved the award," Lee told Psychiatric News.
Lee's impact on Kentucky has been impressive. Among other things, he brokered a deal and assured that budget language was passed in 2008 to identify land and assign funds for the building of a new psychiatric hospital in Lexington. The structure it replaces is 193 years old and was the second oldest psychiatric hospital in the United States.
Lee sponsored successful bills to give mental health professionals a stronger advisory and planning voice in Kentucky's care for individuals with mental illness and developmental and intellectual disabilities.
Lee also sponsored a bill to create a program of intensive therapeutic care for youth with severe emotional disabilities so they wouldn't have to be sent out of state for treatment as was often the case in Kentucky. The bill was passed unanimously by the state's General Assembly.
Among his other achievements are sponsoring legislation to protect the elderly from being exploited, to establish medication assistance programs, and to develop child-advocacy centers around the state.
Lee, a Hardin County Democrat, has chaired the House Budget Review Subcommittee on Human Resources since 1998 and is also co-chair of the Medicaid Oversight and Advisory Committee and of the Medicaid Cost-Containment Task Force.
Lee told Psychiatric News that his leadership role started almost by accident, when a House leader asked him to chair a subcommittee, but it has grown into a nearly 20-year commitment. "I've made it a point in those 20 years to visit clinicians, hospitals, residential facilities, and community clinics around the state."
"In the area of mental health," Lee said, "we haven't even scratched the surface of enabling people with mental illness to live to their full potential."
Lee emphasized that "we need to treat the whole person—not just their mental condition. We have separation of the mental health clinician and the primary care physician; all those records and treatments should be coordinated."
Bonnie Cook, the executive director of the Kentucky Psychiatric Medical Association (KPMA), the state's APA district branch, said the state Senate and House declared February 23 Jimmie Lee Day. "Mental health advocates came from all parts of the state. It was a grand day for APA and for KPMA."
