Lakeside Behavioral Health System - Memphis, Tennessee

sky skanders

stayed here for a week in recovery unit , food was HORRIBLE . it was very ghetto and it felt like a prison. i felt more depressed in my room then i was at home. whatever you do DO NOT send any of your kids here. please send them to group therapy or to a therapist. please know it helps way better than being locked up as a prisoner. it’s like you’re being punished for being mental. i will say one positive worker here is mrs. patrice in the recovery unit. she is the only worker who cares for her kids. along with mrs. jessica. they both care so much for us all it gave me some sort of hope. these two ladies are one of the reasons i made it out of there. sadly the environment wasn’t the best but some of the staff were very nice and i will always remember them. although i now have severe trauma from the place and i still have nightmares about the place , it was still some sort of helpful.

jwils3000

The east unit is terrible. The staff are all unprofessional. The doctors hold you there until you take what they want you to take. Especially if you have good insurance. Three weeks of my life wasted. Michelle is just awful. I saw her twice out of 21 days. tonie, Kim, Kim from West and Christina are cool.

Lily Gailmard

I have nothing but positive things to say about one of their adolescent psychiatrists, Dr. Lucas Trautman. He is a kind and knowledgeable doctor that gives exceptional care to all his patients and their families. He genuinely cares about his patients and is invested in their future. I would highly recommend his services.

Fabian Williams

Don’t walk in that door ! You’re not going like it at all. Trust me I’m saving you. Even though you not suppose trust or save nobody. Staff are aggressive and ghetto. You might mess around and catch a charge in this place. ONCE AGAIN Don’t walk in that DOOR! I warned you two times. If your homeless choose the street before this place you will be more HAPPY. I’m a vet and was not homeless. Seen many guys in that stituation tho. ?

Karen Head

This was one of the worst places to go and get Mental Health Care from. I went out there for numerous of traumas and left with so many more. Staff on the East side, such as a V, Moe, One male Supervisor sit and watched another patient run and hit me in my back as hard as she could and knock me down the hallway. This is the same patient that was on the West side and was transferred to the East side after hitting a staff member in the face with a bottle. She bragged about it to staff and they thought it was funny.

All they did was laugh at the situation. I witness other patients being mistreated because they ask to go smoke or use the phone. They were taken to their rooms and beaten by staff and nothing was done about it. I witness another patient get hit upside the head with her fist in front of the Male Supervisor and other staff; he stated, he wished he could have seen it, which he did see. This all happened on the East side.

Lakeside Behavior Health is a prison and I will never go back or recommend this place to anyone. I went in with Traumas and left with many more. That place is ridiculous and should be shut down, especially the East Side. All the staff should be fired and start over with people who have experience in dealing with people in Mental Health and Substance Abuse. No one should leave with more Traumas than they came with.

I am very upset and didn't deserve the treatment that I received. After getting hit in my back by a patient and knocked to the floor, the staff laughed. I called the Police and they cut the phone line off on me and told me that was against their policy. Everything should be caught on tape. I was ridiculed on a daily basis after that. My husband bought me two bottles of shampoo and one bottle of body wash and I never received it.

After talking to security, they argued me down, that I signed for this on the 21st of June, 2024, stating items cannot stay in your room, which is a lie. I didn't sign for anything, nor do they make patients keep items out of their rooms.

How do I know, because my roommate, the bully, had her items in her room every day and night. This was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Please, if you want to improve your Mental state or Substance abuse, do not go to Lakeside Behavior Health. You will be locked up in a prison. It is a Joke. For real for real.

This place do not deserve any stars, but by default, I had to give one. Shaking my head. I am in distress.

Charm13

Where do I begin....this was the hardest thing I've ever been through to make a decision to leave my 10 year old daughter for treatment but I have no regrets and this is why. My child spent a total of 7 days at Lakeside in the child and adolescent dept. For suicidal thoughts I was BLESSED with Dr. Lucas Trautman as her physician his work is simply amazing. He is so dedicated to his patients and his passion for what he does is unmatched. The following day he called me from his personal cell phone number and reassured me everyday that she would be fine ,his treatment plans and any time I had questions or concerns I called texted which made this experience so much better because it was extremely hard going through this process after those 7 days under his treatment and Savanna along side of him also working with my child ,answering all questions and conducting family meetings when I picked my child up after those 7 days she told me she felt REFRESHED. IM SO GRATEFUL FOR THIS DOCTOR....I am also grateful for Savanna, the 2 nurses Jeremy and Timeka for making this experience for me and my child so refreshing. The doctor as well as Savanna gave my child tools to work with going through everyday life for that i'm forever grateful. Now ADMISSIONS they have a supervisor by the name of Cedric that could careless and when leadership doesn't care it leaks over to the employees started with front desk the lady with blond hair with low hair cut barely even looks up to acknowledge your standing there, when I spoke with Cedric it sound like he was reading directly from his employee hand book he has no empathy or care but there was an employee by the name of Natalee and Reggie that I met that was very knowledgeable kind and express genuine concern on the importance of transparency and made me understand exactly what was about to take place and one other guy bold with gray beard was great immediately began to talk with my child expressing care and why curtain steps have to be taken. Even with that experience in admissions I still give a 5 star because of Dr Trautman's work my child, she has did a 360 walked away with tools she can use everyday. So to any parent having to go through this with your child request this Doctor you want be disappointed he has even checked on my child after leaving to see how she is doing he was such a blessing to my baby and my family. This Man is truly gifted!

Jasmine Jackson

The staff members are unprofessional. I took my son here for treatment (autistic and adhd) because he was showing severe signs of aggression and self-harm. We were there from 5:15-9:30. We were informed that he would benefit from “outpatient services.” They just gave me a form that had resources handwritten on them, and told me he would benefit from a psychiatrist that can prescribe him medicine. I came there during a crisis, and left with nothing. I cannot get that time back that I spent there. I won’t even get into how the staff treated you while going through the metal detectors, etc. I pray they do not talk to the children there like they were speaking to the parents. Horrible experience.

Alexis Gates

Everyone hears about all the horrible things this place has done to people, but no one ever talks about the cost. I stayed there for a week after my suicide attempt, and it cost more than $14,000, more than $2,000 a day. My hospital stay at LeBonheur was 5 stars and cost way less. This was in May 2023. I stayed in the hospital from May 9-11 and at Lakeside from May 11-19. I was 17 at the time, 4 months from my 18th birthday, and had been struggling with my mental health since elementary school.

Kids talked about offing themselves after getting out, and someone was bawling multiple times a day. Most issues were caused by staff. Only one staff member, Nya, was actually good. She once said she needed a day off because of how badly her coworkers treated us and broke down during her break. She genuinely wanted to help, but other staff said she didn't know what she was talking about because she was new.

One staff member sent us all to bed at 6 PM because one girl was doing another girl's hair, yelling at everyone. We weren't allowed to read or talk, even though it was only 6:30. I asked my roommate what was happening, and she said she got yelled at for trying to read.

When I first arrived, I immediately saw how poorly the staff treated us. I was treated like a problem. A new girl on 1-to-1 supervision was laughed at by staff when she asked if she needed to be monitored in the bathroom. Many patients had self-harm on their arms, and she was particularly affected by this issue. Her assumption about needing bathroom supervision was valid, given that it was a common experience during 1-to-1, but the staff's reaction was horrendous. She later attempted to self-harm while on 1-to-1 with Nya, who handled it well. Unfortunately, she had to go to a long-term facility despite her mom's efforts to get her out.

At LeBonheur, I had a "sitter" who even monitored me in the bathroom. The staff there were kind, so it wasn't as traumatic, especially when I requested to have a bath. In contrast, the treatment at Lakeside was dehumanizing and made an already difficult time much worse. I guarantee that more patients left feeling more suicidal than when they went in.

There were some good moments, but the majority of the time, people were treated poorly. Even I broke down when a "good" staff member yelled at us during group therapy. I was sent out of the room and allowed to sit on my bed. Some time later, I was asked if I was good enough to join recreational therapy (RT). I said I was, but I couldn't stop crying. My therapist came to get me for a family meeting while transporting us to the RT room but saw I was crying. She asked my friends why I was so upset, and they explained. She said she would come back later. I ended up continuously bawling to myself, with no staff asking if I was okay. Instead, I was threatened that if I didn't participate in the game then I was rejecting therapy and would have to stay at Lakeside longer. Some my friends there asked if I was okay, but I shut down and only shook or nodded my head in response. Many times when someone was upset, staff would tell patients that they were fine and to leave them alone. This especially happened when one friend of mine had to deal with schizophrenia episodes and whose parents didn't allow them to take medicine for it.

Overall, go anywhere else. If you've had to come here at one point in your life, or if you've had to go to a mental hospital in general and had a horrible experience as we did, I am so sorry. You did not deserve what happened to you. You deserve to be treated with respect and to be heard rather than silenced.