Ah, mental hospitals. Most states have closed theirs (or are in the process of trying to do so), seeing them as anachronisms of another time, when the mentally ill were separated from the rest of society. Private psychiatric hospitals still exist (and flourish), offering inpatient services up to 30 days a year (usually the maximum stay insurance will cover). But the public versions of mental hospitals have largely seen their last days.
But not in Oregon.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the infamous 1975 film that led to a movement to close most of these kinds of public facilities. It was filmed at the sprawling campus of the Oregon State Hospital, a testament to the kinds of facilities government used to build and fund in the belief that such places were good and helpful to the people treated there. But problems at such facilities existed nearly from the start, as it takes special types of people to staff and take care of the emotionally vulnerable souls found in such hospitals. Sadly, most hospitals paid little attention to the quality of staff they hired, resulting in serious abuses and problems:
Although mean Nurse Ratched [from the movie] was pure fiction, the Oregon State Hospital has struggled with some very real troubles over the years, including overcrowding, crumbling floors and ceilings, outbreaks of scabies and stomach flu, sexual abuse of children by staff members, and patient-on-patient assaults.
These problems are not unique to Oregon State — you can find them at practically any state-run hospital for people with mental health issues. That’s because such facilities, often started off with a lot of fanfare and funding, quickly fade into the background and struggle to keep their funding in times of government hardship.
It usually takes some sort of gruesome discovery or horrible abuse to bring about change in government. In Oregon, it took finding some cremated remains not returned to family members (apparently sexual abuse of children by adult staff members wasn’t sufficient):
Politicians had been talking for years about the need to replace the hospital, but didn’t get serious about it until a group of legislators made a grim discovery during a 2004 tour: the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters in a storage room. The lawmakers were stunned.
So the old building that has mostly been abandoned, the J Building, will be torn down to make way for the new:
Milos Forman, the director, lived for six weeks at the institution and had his actors study real patients, according to a 1975 account in Rolling Stone magazine. Nicholson became depressed because of what he saw, including electroshock being administered to a patient.
State leaders decided in 2006 to build a new, $300 million, 620-bed hospital at the site of the oldest and most dilapidated part of the complex, the J Building, a yellow-painted brick structure with brown trim, a towering cupola, and iron gratings on the windows. […]
It is not just a bricks-and-mortar exercise Oregon is undertaking to improve care for the mentally ill. State leaders have pledged beefed-up staffing levels, new treatment programs and better living conditions.
We’ve heard it before. We only hope Oregon state leaders live up to their pledge and provide not only a shiny new building to their charges, but also appropriate staffing levels and care from those staff to actually provide a therapeutic environment. A government running an inpatient mental hospital seems like something from another time…
Read the full article: `Cuckoo’s Nest’ hospital to be torn down
6 comments
It’s a pity that there’s nothing anachronistic about the need for psychiatric hospital beds. Given the sad state of outpatient facilities pretty much everywhere, all too many patients are going without any real treatment. Let’s not be too harsh about judging the old hospitals. At least it put a roof over a lot of people’s heads.
Thanks for this informative article about the “Cuckoo’s Nest” hospital in Oregon. Unfortunately it’s not just state psychiatric hospitals where patients are mistreated or subject to conditions that are less than ideal. In October of 2006, I was an involuntary patient for 6 days in a psychiatric hospital run by Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, a part of the Trinity Health system, in Boise, Idaho. My admission was improperly generated by management at St. Alphonsus, where I was employed for 28 years as a respiratory therapy supervisor, when I reported health and safety hazards there to the public that management had ignored for more than 2 years. The staff at the psychiatric hospital said that there was no reason for me to be there; that I was perfecty normal. My psychologist said there was no reason for me to be admitted. However the psychiatrist (also the medical director) who initiated the involuntary admission claimed that I had at least 8 or 10 major psychiatric problems. He made those claims without ever evaluating me or talking to my psychologist, family physician, or anyone else who knew me including family, friends, and co-workers. He also did not tell me nor any member of my family what those diagnoses were. We first found out about them FIVE MONTHS LATER when my attorney managed to get a copy of my medical record. He also never offered me any treatment for those so-called problems. I was simply locked up for 6 days as an act of retaliation against me for reporting a problem, or more likely, an attempt to discredit my reports by depicting me as a person with serious psychiatric problems. In my medical record the psychiatrist claimed that I was psychologically disabled, but during the time period indicated I was employed at two medical centers caring for patients on life support at both, also supervising at one, and responding to medical emergencies at both medical centers, as well as interacting normally with family and friends, playing full-court basketball and running regularly several times each week and participating in hobbies and other creative activities. I was not “disabled” by any definition of the word.
The conditions at the hospital were appalling. There was no reading material available. I read 8 or 9 books while I was there, but they all had to be brought in by family and friends. There was no music available. For someone who listens to music nearly every day, the absence of music was more disturbing that I would have anticipated. There were no exercise facilities. As someone who has run or exercised regularly since I was a teenager (I’m now 60 years old), the inability to exercise when capable is itself enough to weaken a person’s mental health. The food was mediocre, but mediocre food has been standard fare at institutions for so long that people expect it. However we have right to expect better from health care facilities.
This serious abuse of power that I was subject to may actually be a much more frequent occurence than we realize, since most people treated as I have been would not later talk about it publically. However I’m doing this to raise awareness and hopefully protect others from similar harmful experiences. I’ve heard that the psychiatrist who admitted me has since lost his position as medical director because of the way he treated me. If true, he’s being used as the “fall guy” for management, which still have refused, or failed, to address the safety hazards I was “punished” for reporting. There still has been no accountability on the part of management at Saint Alphnsus concerning this issue.
As a result, now the Idaho Board of Medicine is, in what is clearly an ethically questionable action, raising questions about my qualifiactions to have a respiratory therapy license and they’re basing their actions entirely on the unjustified involuntary admission nearly two years ago, not on any performance issues since there are none.
If you want more information or have any questions check the April 11 entry on my blog at http://www.leonardnolt.blogspot.com or e-mail me at [email protected]. Thank you.
Leonard Nolt
Hi everyone,
I must agree with you, the conditions that are often found in psychiatric institutions are extremely depressing and also heartbreaking. What is even more heartbreaking is that many children have to be faced with the inadequacies of these mental health facilities as well. It is sad that these patients aren’t respected enough to be treated fairly.
As you can probably see, despite the various dilemmas located within medical hospitals and also some professional misconduct. You will more than likely see a much cleaner, more structurally sound facility than you will in a psychiatric hospital.
I encourage more people to proclaim this adamantly and push for a change.
soulful sepulcher has great detailed accounts of what went on at the state hospital that her daughter was in.
soulful sepulcher: posts with state hospital mentions
i think it is interesting i really got enjoy in it. it is also helpful.bye bye
IdahoDrugAddiction