3,287 Comments for Danvers State Hospital

i have to go by this place everyday on my way to school (northshore Community College which is located close to danvers state) the looming builind on top of the hill is something that will cause me to get in a car accident one of these days. i find myself staring up there... wondering... its truly sad that demolition will begin in November

lynne, its great to hear from someone who knows, and really cares. there is alot of us out there.

Aww, I love to hear stuff like this, Lynne. It's so sweet.

I tell ya, awyper, if we were ever to get the money back we have put out to make sure our folks got the little extras (when we could afford it), we would all be rich! 8`-) But honestly, it's worth it every time to know they have what they need or they have a few little goodies that's a special treat for them.

I have staff who know that their favorite person loves a particular type of cologne and they make sure that they are always well stocked. Other staff bring in extra warm sockies or pretty colorful blankets or treats that they know the person loves. Staff decorate like the dickens when the holidays come and make sure there are parties and fun activities, just like in the community. Sometimes we have a holiday open house and invite anyone from the community who wants to come, and other times we take some of our folks out to community get-togethers.

I have one group of staff who can't seem to ever get access to recreation money for the holidays, so they spend out of their own pockets and put on Halloween spook houses and Christmas parades. I am trying to bring a little Chanukah into the scene as well, but for this part of the country they don't know what a dreidel is, so what are ya gonna do? I'll try to slide some culture in without them knowin' this year, though. ;-)

I have met very few staff and teachers (I used to be a special ed teacher billions of years ago) who haven't put out a nice chunk of change over the years so their students/clients/residents/patients would be able to get something they really needed or really wanted.

And it's sweet when community people remember to send goodies these folks' way as well. That's why I get such a kick out of the Hell's Angels-type motorcyclists who put on a yearly drive to take stuffed animals to kids in hospitals and other items to people in need.

Yes, the Dollar Store, the Dollar Tree, Everything For A Dollar, Family Dollar, and Big Lots are the places I haunt for goodies for myself and my folks. God bless them! ;-)

Exactly.....lol

wow- yall are so effing into this stuff huh?

lynne, being a county run home, we are lucky if our residents get no-slip socks, the ones we do get , 'disappear' into the great sock unknown. working the graveyard shift, if a resident decides to get up in the middle of the night we make sure they have socks and shoes on. ive been run over by many a speed demon in a wheelchair . usually their 2nd wind starts about 1:00am. the salvation army sends gifts at xmas, usually a stuffed animal and no slip socks, once they get sent to be labeled, we are lucky to get them back. usually the aides and nurses will purchace them on their own and give them to the residents. what the county dosent give, we give out of our hearts. gotta love the dollar store.....

Let's just say she did sober up.

I never fail to be amazed by the incredible ways the Government find to waste money whch isn't theoretically even theirs in the first place.

Hello Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us Danny. Forever, and ever, and ever.

Wow, how did I miss this one before? I love how it looks like there are two people sitting at the end of the corridor...two very pale people. That's some freaky shit if they put a mirror at the end of that corridor.

What a terrible story Anon.

I think that many people's persistent, negative impressions of large institutions stems from their frequent use as 'dumping grounds' for those that respectable society didn't want to see in the early / mid 1900s. Pregnant teens, those suffering from various physical disabilities or just disruptive children from poor families all ended up in these wards. As one example, apparently Pennhurst was full of deaf and blind kids who were misdiagnosed as educationally subnormal and who would live full and productive lives today.

I can't imagine experiencing some of these places as a barely-aware, severely retarded person let alone as a relatively 'normal' person shoved in one for whatever political or social reason. fifty years ago myself, my girlfriend and many of those I know and love would have very likely lived out their lives in such places. That's a sobering thought indeed.

All the institutions I have worked at or visited have had water towers. The place I am at currently has two water towers, but there are still a large number of folks who live there.

I worked at a facility in Oklahoma about 15 years ago that was being downsized and closed, and they were doing a number of repairs and beautification projects on the entire campus as they closed it. I never could quite understand why, because after they shut it in 1993 or 1994 they have never used it since, so all the money spent on beautifying the even-then unused sections of campus went down the proverbial toilet. I could understand working on the inhabited areas of campus, but they were doing all sorts of work on the closed sections as well.

Anyways, one day I was working in one of the homes with some of the ladies and we received an overhead emergency page to one of the nearby campus parking lots. It turned out that one of the contract painters had neglected to secure his safety harness when painting on top of the water tower, and he fell many, many feet to his death. He left a wife and several small children, which was horrible enough, but the real tragedy to me was that the place was closing within a year or two and not only did the money get wasted on painting a water tower that would soon be obsolete, but there was a terrible, terrible irony that someone ended up dying in such a futile endeavor.

OK, so what other cheerful memories do you want me to bring up tonight? :-)

We don't have water towers like that in the UK. If we did, I could well imagine associating them with watch-towers or similar....

I don't know why, but this one looks rather creepy.

I remember being deathly scared of water towers when I was young. I thought I had gotten over it.

No no-slip socks? That's insane! This year I am playing the part of an institutional risk manager and I chase people around (and hector them to death!) to find out why injuries occurred. People are in serious trouble if they let other people go without shoes and socks on living areas where there are lots of other folks who use wheelchairs. And at night if a fall occurs we chase down staff to make sure they had no-slip socks on people. "Penny wise, pound foolish" ;-)