Topeka ? A key senator said Friday he doubted a legislative study committee would recommend closing one or more of the state’s hospitals for the mentally ill or developmentally disabled.

The Special Committee on Appropriations and Ways and Means is scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday, with the status of state hospitals on its agenda. Any recommendations would be forwarded to the 2004 Legislature, which convenes in January.

“My thinking is that it’s premature to try to close another hospital at this point,” Sen. Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, the study committee’s chairman, told radio’s Mid-America News Network in Wichita. “My best guess is that we will make a recommendation not to close anything at this time.”

Questions about the hospital system arose because the state has five institutions serving an average daily population of about 800 patients.

The state once had four hospitals for the mentally ill and four for the developmentally disabled, serving more than 2,300 patients.

Norton State Hospital for the developmentally disabled closed in 1988, then Topeka State Hospital for the mentally ill closed in 1997 and Winfield State Hospital and Training Center for the developmentally disabled closed in 1998.

The remaining hospitals for the mentally ill are Rainbow, Larned State and Osawatomie State. The remaining hospitals for the developmentally disabled are the Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka and Parsons State Hospital and Training Center.

Advocates for the developmentally disabled have long pushed to have patients served in the least restrictive environment possible. For the mentally ill, hospital stays generally have become shorter and drugs more prevalent, though state officials still see a need for hospitals to handle crises.

Morris said he believed the state did not have enough beds for the mentally ill. He said the committee had seen evidence that vacant space at hospitals for the developmentally disabled had been converted, to make life better for patients.