201 Comments Posted by dme

Knowing most states, the lease is probably still being paid. In the late 1990s, i was still using a 386 (or maybe it was a 486) computer with a dot matrix printer. The printer kept chewing up ribbons, and i learned how to splice them and get another 100 pages or so out of the ribbon. That's how hard it was to get supplies. But when the printer finally did break down completely, the powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, chose to pay a $300 repair bill on the obsolete machine rather than let me buy the $75 ink jet printer I had been asking for on every month's office supply order.

In my experience, the most dangerous thing to happen with a sewing machine is running the needle through your own finger. I used to work at a sheltered workshop where the best jobs were the ones in the sewing department. We had a government contract to make various supplies for the military and the jobs paid well above minimum wage. The employees all had either mental illnesses or developmental disabilities.

The hospital probably got lots of mail. Remember that until the 1950s, many employees lived in housing built for them on the grounds of the facility. Many of the patients' families did stay in contact with them, plus there would be all the "business/official" mail. The mailroom might have been utilized to provide vocational training for some of the patients as well.

I once heard the difference in old-style architecture and modern architecture explained this way: in past centuries, materials were very expensive, but time was cheap. Time was the one thing that most people had in abundance. So when builders went to the trouble of securing the expensive materials, they wanted to show them off with the finest craftsmanship and detail. Today, because of all the technology we have, materials are cheap but time is very expensive. Not to mention that we've become so accustomed to modern technology and decades of accepting as an article of faith the idea that newer ways are better just because they are newer (by now many of us have seen the folly of that assumption) and some crafts and techniques cannot now be re-created. They are lost arts. States also tried to out-do each other when they erected public buildings, whether a capitol or a psychiatric hospital.

i wondered about the radiators too, especially since the one under the windows seems about double the length of a typical room's radiator. Even if the room did require two radiators, I don't think they would normally be so close together, unless that was just done for convenience of installation because that's where the piping was. Where's our resident HVAC expert? Anyway, on a cold winter night with those windows rattling in the wind, I know where I want to be! BTW, is that pipe across the ceiling a retrofitted sprinkler?

Most of the people I've worked with really enjoyed bingo and would ask to play it, not because they had nothing else to do, but because it was fun, especially when they won a little prize. Staff usually enjoyed it too, because a shift is a lot easier when the people you're working with are enjoying themselves.

I doubt very much that these are confidential patient files. Doctors, therapists, psychologists, social workers and other human services professionals have always had patient confidentiality as a central tenet of their professional code of ethics. So even though HIPPA is only a few years old, earlier procedures would still have guaranteed confidentiality. In my state we found that our state regulations, which predated HIPPA, were already stricter than HIPPA. I am sure many other states were in the same situation. The stricter standard always prevails. States are usually very careful about storing the records of the old facilities and don't just leave them laying around an abandoned site. When confidential records are found, it is likely that they were the "personal" files of a particular staff person, not the patient's "official" record (yes, the same confidentiality standards apply to "personal" files, and the copies or notes in "personal" files should either have been shredded and burned, or incorporated into the "official" file). Facilities are required to keep all kinds of records, not just patient files. The documents in this room could very well be fire drill reports, petty cash accounting, menus, maintenance work orders, staff meeting minutes, contingency plans for power outages or severe weather, the facility policy manual, MSDS sheets for all the chemicals used in cleaning and maintenance, accounts payable and receivable, count sheets for controlled substances, furniture inventories and disposal reports, and on and on and on...

A really powerful picture...both the performers and the audience are gone...memories live on. And light remains.

I, too, wish that there would at least be some architectural salvage from these buildings if the buildings themselves cannot be adapted to another purpose. One of the most fascinating hotels I stayed in with my parents when I was a kid had been completely built of remnants of buildings slated for demolition--floors from old mills, doors from banks and schools, bathtubs from old hotels, things like that. The bridal suite was created from the steeple of a demolished church and stood off by itself on the grounds.

The pool table makes me think that violent patients were *not* living in this building around the time of its closure. Cue sticks and pool balls are not something you would want on a ward with patients who were prone to violence (although I suppose the sticks and balls could have been kept locked in a cabinet so that staff could regulate access).

Most people probably felt much more imprisoned by their mental illness and its symptoms than by the hospital. It's also important to remember that many so-called normal people in the community are not very accepting of others who have mental illnesses or developmental disabilities. For at least some of the patients, the hospital was a safe haven from teasing, pointing, laughing, avoidance, and sometimes outright violence (think of the videos of homeless people being beaten by others just for kicks) they experienced outside the hospital. I've worked with people who forged genuine, deep friendships while in the hospital, friendships that have been maintained for many years after both were released. Others became very close to a specific staff person and had more "family" experiences with hospital staff than they ever did with their birth family.

The sign reminded me of when I was involved in planning the community placements of the last individuals in a state institution for people with developmental disabilities. I had several parents tell me they didn't want their child moved to a group home until the staff had the facility's keys in their hand and the state had shut off the lights.

I'm still wondering why the NAACP would have been so interested in this place....maybe if you said the ACLU I would believe it. :-)
The argument about it being illegal to "lock people up" or "keep people against their will" should be very interesting to everyone in jail. I guess we won't be needing jails anymore, if it's *really* illegal to lock people up!

We may consider them "torture" now, but at the time, insulin shock and lobotomy were considered legitimate treatments. Electroconvulsive therapy is still used in cases of intractable depression. The old treatments were not considered torture. There was no other treatment available then, and these were attempts at getting people to a more functional condition so that they could be discharged and return home. As soon as medical knowledge increased and psychotropic medications became available, insulin shock and lobotomy ended. How do you think we get any drug? There are tests on human subjects. The main problem in the past is not that drugs were tested on patients or that some of the drugs were not helpful. That still occurs today. The problem was the lack of informed consent (of course, if a person is being treated for mental illness severe enough to require hospitalization, how capable is s/he of giving informed consent?). Most of the psychiatrists who worked at state hospitals did so because of genuine concern for the patients. They would have earned much more in private practice.

I would imagine that Creedmore is still open because there is still a need for inpatient psychiatric treatment, just not a need for the number of beds and facilities that existed in the past. Improved medications and community-based treatment and support greatly reduced the number of inpatient beds needed. Community treatment costs less than inpatient care and doesn't have the overwhelming operating costs of the huge institutions. Today you will probably hear more complaints about a *lack* of needed psychiatric hospital beds than about abuse in psychiatric hospitals. The days of "getting anyone committed with just a signature" are long gone, as they should be. There are still people for whom a hospital is the only safe place due to their mental state. I worked with far more people who had been discharged to the community *before* their condition had been adequately treated than with people who were "locked away" too long (referring to individuals who were hospitalized for the first time, or for a relapse of a pre-existing condition, after about 1988). Too-early discharge often leads to a failure of community placement and rapid return to the hospital (the "revolving door" effect).