4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

If one chooses to see this photo as representative of horrific events, that is what one will see. I see an institutional-looking bathroom in an old abandoned building. Just as I can imagine a staff person abusing a resident here, I can also imagine a staff person patiently working with a resident, day after day, trying patiently to teach the resident to rub the soapy washcloth just once on his/her arm, to take one little step toward greater independence, and celebrating every little achievement. While there may have been a few voyeurs among staff, who found gratification in watching residents bathe, most staff would have been teaching, protecting, and providing care.

I think everyone agrees that large institutions are not desirable. However, one thing they have/had "going for them" was an economy of scale. The individuals with developmental disabilities whose needs could be met at lower cost in the community were discharged from institutions 20-30 years ago (if they were ever in institutions at all). The individuals in institutions today or who have been discharged in the last 12 or so years have multiple serious problems--the mental retardation itself, inability to walk, lack of intelligible communication, often orthopedic complications, feeding difficulties, various medical problems, seizures--and very intense needs. Ten years ago I worked on setting up community placements for the last 12 people who were still institutionalized from my agency's region of the state. The usual cost of their community placements was above $12,000 per person per month, well over twice the cost of their care in the institution. Community homes are cheaper in the aggregate, but not necessarily in any particular individual case. Some services also became much harder to access. The institution had a dentist who was used to working with these patients. It was very difficult to find a local dentist (the community placements were of necessity two hours away from the institution because the closure agreement specified that each person be returned to his/her "home" community) willing to take the time necessary to treat them.

Almost all of the mechanical restraints I have seen used have been used to protect individuals from their own self-injurious behaviors. I have seen people pick at sores until bone is visible. Or an eye or lip destroyed. Or head-banging until stitches are needed because what the person seeks is the attention given in a hospital emergency room.

Two aspects of moving these residents to the community were especially hard. One was reassuring the staff at the institution that we would provide the same loving, considerate care they had provided for the thirty or forty years the person had been with them. I know abuses happened, but I don't think abusive staff were the ones insisting on coming to the new home with the person to make sure it was everything we had promised in the discharge planning meetings, and who made videos for us showing how they handled mealtimes, baths, transfers, and all the other little aspects of the person's day, as well as making sure we knew favorite foods, favorite music, etc.

The other especially hard thing was the families of the individuals. Forty years ago we**the "experts"**had told them that the right thing to do was to place their child in the institution, because they would get special care by people who knew how to help them, it was best for everyone, etc. Now we were coming back to them, after they had either finally made some kind of peace with that placement or were still agonizing with guilt over it, and telling them, no, the institution isn't the right place, we were wrong. It was the only home most of them had ever known, they were with staff who had been there for years in a small town where they were part of the community, but the LAW said they had to leave there and come live among strangers who didn't know them. And yes, we had been wrong before, but this time, the families were supposed to trust that we really DID know, and that this would be better. For some, probably most, families, it was. For others, I'm not so sure.

in regard to babies at institutions...yes, some children were admitted very early in life (I am speaking in general terms, not specifically about Pennhurst). Sometimes when a clearly disabled baby was born, the doctor advised the parents to not get attached, to "put the baby in a home," and have another (hopefully normal) child. Sometimes the parents already had several older children, or had another child or two in quick succession after the disabled child, and felt that they could not provide for all their children, and that the disabled child would be better off at the state school where he would get "special" education and training (this is when there was no special education in public schools for severely delayed children and no community support services to help families keep their children at home).
Also, many developmentally delayed children are very small for their chronological age as a result of the syndrome that caused their disability. Some children the size of an average three year old may be seven or eight years old...so they might have been considered "babies" for a long time.
One of the things my work with adults who grew up in institutions taught me is that the real miracle is that so many babies are normal. Just one tiny defect on one microscopic part of one chromosome can change the person's entire life, yet the vast majority of the time, everything goes right.

I know of cases where, as part of a consent decree in a class-action suit brought on behalf of patients at institutions like Pennhurst, certain sections of buildings (or entire buildings) were so far out of compliance with standards for active treatment and patient care that they were ordered permanently closed. Because of the deficiencies, any services that did take place in such areas could not/would not be paid for by Medicaid, which was the funding source for most patients. In some cases it would have cost too much to renovate the area to bring it into compliance, in other cases it was concluded that no matter what was done, the area could not be brought into compliance, and it was sealed off to ensure that no one had access to it.

Why does everyone think that everybody here was treated so badly and killed...It was a mental institution where some people were abused. Its not like it was a death camp and tons of people died.

it's so awesome. i would love to go there

the shadow looks almost like someone walking

yeah I'd be holding it for sure and end up getting uromiceaticeses.

I think it was more to protect the workers there, seemed like nobody gave a shit about the patients (hence bath tub pic) and all the torture and rape that went on.

come on now there for gaurds like mike said....but even today's smartest kids can get around anything to eat paint chips...no pun intended on the patients.

I'm a paranormal investigator and I am looking to find anyone with information on pennhurst, even if you were employed or a patient, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to contact me.

It sickens me to know we have such morons who have no respect for history. I was in some of the buildings this month and the graffetti on the walls really pissed me off. It said that crack heads and squatters are living in the tunnels, I made it to the tunnels but we didn't have the proper lighting to proceed, however we didn't run into any crack heads either but there was evidence of such. If there are vandels and junkies going there I hope the spirits scare the shit out of them and they will never return.

I had the pleasure of working with a woman in her late 40's that had lived here for most of her life. It had always been her opinion that the tunnels were intended to protect the outside world from her. That society didn't want to see. If that was the intention or not i don't know, but i'm aware of the lasting effect it had. A stark reminder of how we, as humans failed at humanity. Sobering.

i think ppl should stop arguiing with marcia because she has been fighting anyone who said this place was bad for years now

you know what is funny is that i work at the veterans center, the old pennhurst and the numbers on the walls are still there, but they are in our staff bathrooms