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Why would they use or do shock therapy on T.B. patients to begin with? T.B. is mostly a respiratory illness, so how would that help treat or cure it? Everything I have read on T.B., nothing is brought up about that.

On another note, this building looks more like a military headquarters building than a hospital. The centered flag pole & the circle drive in front of it makes me think that. Neat looking place.

Did they do shock therapy on patients with TB

Donna souza,
From what I have found in my own searches each state has a legal procedure for the shut down of hospitals. Part of that procedure is the transfer and storage of the medical and other records of that hospital. I would start with the State health department of the state the hospital was in.
Good Luck

Would like to know for my mom ,myself and my aunt

My grandmother died in the Hanson T.B.hospital and a women that was in the hospital at the same time is still alive. In her90's How can I found more about my grandmother.

Hey Kool-Aid!

The two aliens from The Simpsons.

@ R.E. You're an idiot.

I am making a scrapbook of " Rocky Point" memories. I got a lot of great information and pictures from different websites. However I still need more information that I was not able to find. I was hoping someone could help me. Did Rocky Point have a ride called, " round up?" And what was that ride that had two round wheels each end of it? Who built the arcade? What year? I recently found out that the ride " apollo11" was later redone and renamed as the " musik Express." Cool. I used to come to this park often. Very fond memories. Sad it's gone :(

That first paragraph did not copy correctly it should read ;
A short story about some of my memories of this place. I was technically resident at the Shelter out back but spent a lot of time in the hospital after having my neck broken in a setup attack.

A short story about some of my memories of this place. I was technically resident at the Shelter out back bushed
DYFS started out as part of the Department of Institutions and Agencies.
While in their "protective custody" in the Shelter in Belleville I was tortured and abused mentally physically and medically experimented on for fun not to test medical treatments by the staff from some ward in the Isolation Hospital where they kept children. They had the help of Nurses and other staff from the County Geriatric Center, which was in the same hospital building in hiding their activities. They used ECT and drugs to as part of the torture to wipe my memory and for the damage it did to my developing brain. They hated how smart I was. At one point I was paralyzed after an assault in School # 10 across the street. I was left on a stretcher in the hall behind the first floor nurses station to do my mind more harm they denied me any visible or audible stimulation going so far as to knock me out with meds when they cleaned my body. I recovered movement in spite of how badly I was treated after the old nasty geriatric doctor who “treated” me first helped them find a specialist from another county who was young and willing to work off the books (hide the records). The woman in charge of small children (*Aunt Dolly is all I was told to call her) a “No Show” job as far as she was concerned, arranged this. Her husband was the County Sheriff and I suspect made sure nothing came of the investigation. I figured this out after I started remembering 7 years ago. Her junior partner in crime was called Ms. Janey.
It was their habit of not showing up for long stretches and leaving older kids in charge to do her job that let me be abused as I was. She was fat and lazy and let the “kids” who ran the joint at the behest of the adults from the Hospital who abused me (and the disabled kids in their charge at the hospital) tell her what to think say and do all without her realizing it. She and her partner in crime are still alive and unpunished for their crimes. I think Ms Janey still works for the County. Aunt Dolly’s husband the former Sheriff Ralph D’Ambola is dead. Aunt Dolly was the one who made sure they drugged me daily and kept me in that back hallway with no stimulation other than random terrorizing to destroy my memory.
That doctor fused my C spine at 3-4. It hurt like hell and the headache and ear ringing has never stopped. They used straps to hold the halo onto my head. Tied my body to the gurney then to compress my neck they used more straps so that there were no scars from the screws that are normally screwed into the skull to hold the halo in place. I was subjected to constant torment when not being denied any stimulus at all including not letting me see a clock or know what time or day it was. A new nurse heard me crying out for someone to come talk to me and got fired for moving me into an empty room next to where my gurney was in that back hall to protect me from the kids who came to torment me at meal times. The kids ate inside the hospital; the Shelter was out behind it in another building.
The assault was pre arranged as the regular teacher planned to take that day off and the substitute was known and gotten to before hand. She made me and my assailant stay after class and when I asked why after everyone else had left she got up and left without saying a word. He attacked me and after chasing me around a while he got me in a headlock under his left arm and dropped to the floor breaking my neck and paralyzing me.

At the end of it all a woman whose name I do not recall tried to save me and could only get me sent on to foster care. Yet I remember her walking alongside my gurney as I was taken into the room where they ECT’d me the last time whispering something into my ear that she desperately wanted me to remember. Just before sending me on to foster care they made sure to ECT and drug me good that last time to make sure I forgot what they did or even that I was there. I did for a very long time. I lived my whole life thinking all these symptoms of that abuse were congenital defects.
The foster parents were selected for their stupidity and cruelty. The first home I was constantly beaten and she was told to concentrate on the injured body parts that they injured during the torture at the Shelter. A Social Worker would come by every few weeks and take me for a ride and beat me and otherwise terrorize me saying things I did not understand.“You better keep your mouth shut” Smack and so on.
The second home was not physically abusive it was more psychological abuse running me down and denial of any positive interaction and denial of stimulation. I was a slave to be used and then made to sit alone in a room until I was to be used again. In all places I was prevented from doing any physical exercise or any physical exertion. At the Shelter they even took me into the hospital to radiate my thyroid trying to slow me down. The staff of the hospital ran it. The doctors were stupid moronic uncaring figureheads whom their staff lied to and laughed at behind their backs for how easy it was to lead them with false stories a tiny bit of effort would have shown up for the lies they were.
I am not the only one done this way at the Shelter. After many years I finally met one person who was there 7 years before the records say I was there and he was subjected to ECT and drugging as well as repeated rape in 1961.
The crap they did is straight out of almost any history of what the Nazi’s did to the Jews. Torture, lobotomy, ECT, experiments for fun, drugging, sexual abuse, the list goes on and on. I am not the only one. Imagine what they did to the disabled children they were supposed to be caring for.

The first memory I had which made me realize it was something more than nightmares was this. I place it literally the day before I was to be finally allowed to get off the gurney. One of the orderlies had been trying very hard to be allowed to take me outside. He was nice to me, but they all were until they weren’t. Anyway he took me outside under one of the trees on the Carpenter Street side of the building he lit a Newport cigarette. He then grabbed my right hand with both of his. Arched himself over me and in as nasty and hatefully angry a voice as he could muster he said to me; “If you remember this, and you won’t but if you do. You tell them it was race warfare!” and he then bent my thumb all the way back to my arm as hard as he could until it touched and I started screaming. The woman he had tricked into letting him tale me out came running form inside and the memory ends.

This is only a small portion describing a few days in a years long process of abusing me 24/7 with an eye toward diminishing my mind and hoping to make me retarded or at least disabled enough that I could legitimately be locked in the ward where the disabled kids were abandoned. I distinguish “legitimately” because they did leave me there after some sessions of ECT so that I had no normal frame of reference to help me recover my mind as I came back to myself. That backfired because I started teaching the disabled kids how to do something around a table. They were not given any stimulation or education because they were regarded as unable to learn based on the symptoms of that neglect.
A nurse saw me realized I didn’t belong there and I was removed. No more details there. Later on the woman who I mention saved me told me that the kids had started making a huge fuss all day everyday demanding I be brought back to teach them some more. She told me this was the proof that advocates had been looking for to get the formal adoption of statewide requirements that disabled children be given proper stimulation and education. She told me I was not credited because they could not explain my presence in the ward in a way that did not expose the truth about this place

That ward was a separate entity from the Hospital which was the County Geriatric Center at the time and the Shelter. I think they were all run by the County and staffed by County staff. I know the Shelter and the Geriatric Center were county run even though the Shelter technically had to answer to the Department I named at the top.

Rosalyn, I am sure your mother went through hell there, I feel that was why my grandmother only worked there for such a short time as a nurse. It is true that all types of young and old people resided in these institutions from a runaway (as was your mom), people not able to hear, too many children to take care of, to disabled .... I have always thought that it was the employees that needed to be let go and hire competent people to take care of these folks and not be rid of the idea of a community to be gone. A lot of the folks that lived in them in later years actually had more freedom on grounds than in everyday society, now, some are in gorgeous homes but are actually prisoners in their homes no independence to walk on public sidewalks due to the public"s opinions of the disabled.and need to be escorted everywhere.. ( not all homes are like that though, some do have more independence than others )So I guess I am saying I want to apologize for your mom's treatment there and wish I could've known her but an open mind about some of those communities and the good that COULD have resulted from them if having competent, caring, and ,compassionate people there to help them then maybe a much different outcome could have been for your family ... We all learn from our mistakes...please try not to be bitter, but I do understand why you may be.

I would love to see this building, my grandmother worked there as a nurse in'22 and '23 she was raised in Belchertown. Wish I could find her time card again...found it once and it was confirmed by a worker there before it closed, of course I lost it somehow :( but it was my only proof that she worked with my grandfather and bore two children from him ...oh well, guess some things are better off lost

I imagine it was a lot better in the times of use, what is this fascination I have of all old architecture and institutions that I find a thirst for ... Just weird I guess...

I often visited the colony when I was a young boy in the 1950's. A family friend was the caretaker there and took me fishing in the lake and stream. I have a vivid memory of the slaughter house and pig heads hanging on those hooks.