The ratios in todays group homes are considerably smaller and may seem much better but in reality one has to question if it is. The majority of caregivers are women and if you have ever gone up against a very upset and frustrated mental patient, then you see the issue there, but anyways, the smaller groups still have the same problems. Lets say you have a runner, a self and other abuser, one that is on a special diet and at every turn is getting into the fridge, another that likes to do self indecent things and the other two while normally calm, change real fast when the crap hits the fan. Its like a domino effect, one right after the other they start going into their behaviors, totally chaotic, yeah, serious understaffing is a problem that has yet to be fixed but alot of that stems from another issue. Being underpaid, which in turn leads to many caregivers just not caring enough and so the abuse and neglect still go on. :(
Indeed some things have changed such as medication distribution, the laws have changed, though perhaps becoming too drastically one sided (at least here in Michigan where the caregivers have no way of diffusing a physically violent attack from a client other than trying to talk them down or calling the cops. I know other states teach caregivers proper defense techniques against such attacks.) However, things such as, caregiver/client ratios have not really changed all that much. In the institutions we will guesstimate that there were 2 nurses to say 100 patients on a floor. Each nurse has to feed, medicate, change, bathe and otherwise keep watch over 50 patients. Some of them are runners that try to escape, some are physically aggresive, others are self abusers and so on. You can imagine the problems that arise by the hospitals being drastically understaffed. (Sry I have to put this in more than 1 post as I am posting from my cellphone internet, again my apologies.)
I see many a protest to have kept this vehicle of tortured memories standing but few if any of you saw the reality of it. Some called it beautiful but how can it be when its very being and its very deep, dark soul pulsates with the ugly blackness that diseased its walls? The patients that resided there or any state mental hospital for that matter were human beings used as lab rats, many neglected and abused. It was all real, not some movie set and sequence built and romanticized by Hollywood to feed our dark need for the black and dreary. Human beings really lived this and died this, so where does beauty fit in? I fail to see it, maybe its bcuz I work in the mental health field and I see what vibrant personalities my clients possess and I see just how human the mentally challenged are on a daily basis. I say I'm glad its gone. As for those seeking ghosts, no worries, they are still here just "living" with more freedom than they had in life.