Comments

I'm definitely digging the foot-operated flushing mechanism. Why can't they make those now? lol.

Its so sad that people have let these buildings fall into such a mess.

This is beautiful...It really does look like its sitting on a cliff or something..

the cellin is there still under dropped cellin

this place is gettin knocked down in a a few mths, most haunted are doin a live show there end of dis mth. one well of a place, it would take you bout 2 days to walk around the whole place

One of the things I learned at the best job I ever had was to never think I was better than any of the people we served. We were expected to treat each person as we would want someone to treat our parent, our sibling, our child, our best friend. We were reminded often that anyone of us could be in an accident that would leave us with a brain injury and in need of constant care. When we were looking for housing for a person with mental illness or mental retardation, our standard was whether or not WE would live there. A person with mental health problems is still a PERSON first, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams just like everyone else--not a "psycho," "insane lunatic" or any other asinine label.

I hope i misunderstood the last comment. Auschwitz was built as a mechanism for genocide. However great the shortcomings of state psychiatric hospitals, they were established for the purpose of restoring people to health.

A sense of humor and perspective are also necessary for working in the mental health field. You have to be able to separate the person from their illness and the "bad" or dangerous behavior it can cause. One co-worker was severely injured when a delusional patient came into the building and swung a large hammer at his head. Another was hospitalized for a couple of days when a patient sprayed a toxic chemical in her eyes (he didn't understand that it was ok to use it for cleaning floors, but not for squirting people). Another patient brought a gun into the building, and one of the doctors disarmed him without violence. After these incidents, we made our building more secure, more Plexiglass windows and locked doors, so that there would be a little more time to defuse a situation before it reached the point of personal injury, and we made sure we were monitoring signs and symptoms more closely. No one wants patients to have to get into a crisis before they get the help they need. I've learned that virtually anything can be used as a weapon. I recall an enraged man running down the hall at staff, swinging his three-foot bowling trophy. If you take all of these things too seriously, you can't last in the field. You have to keep reminding yourself that this is why you are here. If the people didn't have problems, they wouldn't be where they are, so sometimes you have to suppress what would be a natural reaction in most settings, and just go on loving them and doing the best you can. Probably the funniest episode (again, in a gallows humor kind of way) was when two large, very strong, and very angry young adult male patients got into a fight. The secretary was so flustered that instead of using our standard code for calling for help, she got on the intercom and yelled "We need MEN on the third floor!"

Another factor that made workers' jobs so difficult at state hospitals is that the patients there were placed there because there was NO other place for them. If they had strong family support, if they had insurance, if they had money, they saw a private psychiatrist in a nice office and went to a private psychiatric hospital if the need for hospitalization arose.

I've worked with more than a few people who preferred to spend the hottest weeks of summer in a recently-constructed, air conditioned state hospital rather than stuck in their stifling, run-down, tiny apartment in a high crime area. Most people with serious, chronic mental health issues do not have the job skills to be gainfully employed, and SSI checks do not buy much in the way of decent housing. The community is often not very welcoming, either. I recall one incident where I was working with a young man, teaching him how to go to the drugstore to pick up and pay for his prescription medications. Reading and counting were difficult for him, but he could do both. The insensitive clerk looked at him disdainfully when he was slow to hand over his money and said, very loudly, "What's wrong with you? Can't you even read?" (We called the store later and spoke to the manager.) On another occasion, several staff and group home residents walked to a neighborhood ice cream shop for a treat on a summer evening. One of the residents used a wheelchair. Her wheelchair would not fit through the door, and the owner refused to unlock the other door so that she could enter the store. He said he didn't want "those people" in his store anyway. (We filed a formal complaint with the human rights commission, which sent out a very professionally-dressed lawyer to investigate the possible violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He also used a wheelchair, and had the same experience as our resident did, so there were legal consequences for the business.)

I think the "S" after the room number stands for "south."

anyone else see a slight shadow of a man to the right of the steps?

its a panopticon, it allows the watched to watch them self.

This hospital is due for demolition in 3 weeks time.....
http://www.eveninglead...ready-for.4561833.jp

Great way to end the tour, thanks