The Kings Park Psychiatric Center has had a large effect on the social changes of Long Island. A small town grew larger and prosperous from the direct effect of this State hospital from the time of 1885 to the present. The history of the town, the patients and court cases held, and the concluding plans for the land after its closing have all had a significant mark on the social changes of the town.
The first hospital was built in a quiet farming town later named Kings Park. In 1885, officials of what was then the city of Brooklyn established the Kings County Farm on more than 800 acres to care for the mentally ill. Kings Park was only a small part of what would later become a giant chain of connected mental hospitals on Long Island, each with over 2,500 patients at one time.(Bleyer,2)
As new buildings went up at Kings Park, so did the patient population. At the turn of the century, Kings Park in just 15 years had grown to, 697 patients and a staff of 454. This dramatic increase had given the hospital a larger population than the rest of the Town of Smithtown. (Sarhaddi) The hospital was very equipped; therefore, not very dependant on the rest of Long Island.
All the hospitals built around this time prided themselves on being self-sufficient farm communities. At Kings Park, the three wooden houses grew into more than 150 permanent buildings, including a bakery, Laundromat, amusement hall, bandstand, library, furniture repair shops, and nursing school. Most of the people who lived in Kings Park worked at the Psychiatric Center. Many of them were Irish immigrants brought from their native land more than 50 years ago by relatives who worked at the mental hospital on the Long Island Sound and who had promises of jobs for them too. (Bleyer)
During World War II, when many employees joined the armed forces, Central Islip recruited black workers from the Carolinas, which led to cultural changes in the mix of the community. This developed distinct differences between certain areas of race such as African American, Hispanic, and white neighborhoods. Minority groups not allowed to fight in the war or not taken to fight were offered jobs to work at the hospitals. The Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital hadn’t really become very over-populated until the 1960’s. (Sarhaddi)
The Kings Park Psychiatric Center was in its Heyday in the 1960’s.
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals and mental asylums, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of serious psychiatric diseases, such as clinical depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients. Others may specialize in the temporary or permanent care of residents who, as a result of a psychological disorder, require routine assistance, treatment, or a specialized and controlled environment. Patients are often admitted on a voluntary basis, but people whom psychiatrists believe may pose a significant danger to themselves or others may be subject to involuntary commitment.
The 1930s was a tough time for all of the mentally ill people. They were not treated the way that they do now. The mentally ill were called names like satans child, or they were not expected or very frowned upon in many religions. So because of all of the people who were mentally ill they started to create asylums. With these asylums they could hold almost all of the mentally ill people during that time. All of the asylums were overcrowded and sometimes there would be around 1 million patients. WIth all of the people in these asylums the staff and doctors became very understaffed so the patients living within the asylums were not treated how they should have been. Then doctors had found ways that they thought could cure these mentally ill people, whether it would be cruel to them or not. The treatments ran from major brain surgery to taking baths for multiple days.
Although Peoria State Hospital was a pioneer in mental healthcare, it was not the first hospital to try and treat patients. The treatment of mental health care had been going on for some time before PSH, but sending loved ones to one of these treatment centers was seen as a last resort. There were people in these hospitals, but most of the time the insane were either taken care of at home by family, housed in almshouses (houses for poor people) or they were sent to jail. In these places there was no treatment. The mental person, if violent, would be bound and or sedated heavily.
As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Before Kirkbride's standardized methods for mental hospitals, those with mental illness suffered crude and inhuman treatment. Beginning in Colonial America society, people suffering from mental illness were referred to as lunatics. Colonists viewed lunatics as being possessed by the devil, and usually were removed from societ...
Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation." This improved the treatment of patients but the mentally ill that weren't in this asylum may have
In the 1840’s, the United States started to build public insane asylums instead of placing the insane in almshouses or jail. Before this, asylums were maintained mostly by religious factions whose main goal was to purify the patient (Hartford 1). By the 1870’s, the conditions of these public insane asylums were very unhealthy due to a lack of funding. The actions of Elizabeth J. Cochrane (pen name Nellie Bly), during her book “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” significantly heightened the conditions of these mental asylums during the late 1800s.
The concept of the asylum was originally meant to be a place of retreat for a sorely troubled individual. Appalled by the treatment of the insane, a woman by the name of Dorothea Dix set out to persuade legislature to establish thirty-two new asylums in several states across the country. This included the monumental government hospital, St. Elizabeth’s, in D.C. Dix believed that the most deranged individuals would recover from their illness if they were treated with kindness and dignity. These hospitals were set apart from the community and were made to provide a place of retreat from busy city life, a place for healing. The hospital grounds were peaceful and relaxing. With this environment and a structured day complete with evening entertainment it was thought that a patient would need only a few months to heal. The first patient arrived at St. Elizabeth’s in 1855. Dorothea Dix once said, “If the person’s insanity was detected soon ...
Another man involved was the Dr. John Galt he himself worked at one of these insane asylums as the superintendent of the Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg. Although there was a stream of terrible abuse in the asylum and prison movement towards the sick and insane he was one of the few that treated his patients with care he had very little use for restraints and preferred a calming medication. He was also the first influence in
To begin, the stereotypical views on psychiatric institutions are understandable due to the history of these facilities. When the idea of a mental institution was first introduced in 1700s American society,
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
Those with mental illness would live in the community with an array of services and be able to be free from the constraints of confinement. In the early 1960’s the United States began an initiative to reduce and close publicly-operated mental hospitals. This became known as deinstitutionalization. The goal of deinstitutionalization was to allow people suffering from mental illness to live more independently in the community with treatments provided through community health programs. Unfortunately, the federal government did not provide sufficient ongoing funding for the programs to meet the growing demand. States reduced their budgets for mental hospitals but failed to increase funding for on-going community-based mental health programs. As a result of deinstitutionalization hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people were released into the community without the proper resources they needed for their treatment. (Harcourt,
Abortion’s legalization through Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade, has allowed for one in three pregnancies to end in abortion. This means that 1.5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year (Flanders 3). It ranks among the most complex and controversial issues, arousing heated legal, political, and ethical debates. The modern debate over abortion is a conflict of competing moral ideas and of fundamental human rights: to life, to privacy, to control over one's own body. Trying to come to a compromise has proven that it one cannot please all of the people on each side of the debate.
Being a mother is a lifelong job that requires copious time, energy, and money. There are myriad different reasons in which a woman would consider getting an abortion. The decision is often tragic and painful for the mother. It is one of the biggest choices a woman will make. Many people have strong beliefs about abortion, and if a mother makes a decision that they do not agree with they sometimes turn against the mother, and enkindle egregious feelings about their decision for the rest of their life. Indeed a woman may not get an abortion for selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Additional intentions for having abortion include rape, financial difficulties, obligation by family members, or danger to the baby’s health (Roleff
From observed and moral claims, a wide range of views supporting either more or less legal restriction on abortion has emerged in America. Politicians define the issue by party lines, while some support groups define the issue through its constitutionality and its moral views symbolized by their residents, largely are consider being pro-choice, or pro-life. The mass media describes the issue as morally, presenting to the nation the views of various pro-life and pro-choice organizations with little realistic evidence from both sides. The countless points that can be taken on this issue can be allocated by practical and moral expectations to a clearer analyze the details of this intense issue. The probability of the woman having a child in the near future would be slim to none. This is because your body cannot handle certain chemicals and mechanics, what does not kill you, will make you stronger; but will cause greater pain to your