Tedda's World: Viewpoint of the Nurse

Tedda, I can’t stop thinking about you. I read your article in yesterday’s paper about being released, in 1974, from the Michener Centre hospital. You had been unjustly imprisoned for nearly 20 years. I worked at that hospital while you were there. I am sorry, I don’t remember you. There were so many patients back then. Were you one of the silent ones, I often saw, your forehead pressed tightly against a tiny window, planning your escape?”
You write that, without warning, you were taken from the quiet farm you were brought up on and sent to live at the hospital. You couldn’t even ask why. Words, that sounded clear inside your head, became garbled when they came out of your mouth You were sent to a hospital for mental defectives because you were born with cerebral palsy. You were 15 years old.
We were both young women, in our twenties, when I started working at the hospital. I was fresh out of university, inadequately armed with my family ingrained stiff upper lip, politeness, and compassion. You had already been a patient for 14 years. I find myself walking those accursed grounds again, this time in my mind, tracing your probable journey. It was common to most patients.
Before you had time to unpack your bags, Dr. LeVann, the head of the hospital, sent you to have your appendix out . You were long overdue for sterilization. I worked at the teenagers’ cottage, Linden House. I remember a pretty 17-year-old patient who often told me of her plans to get married and have children. She didn’t know that she had been sterilized at 14. I hid my tears when she showed me her appendix scar.
Your parents came to see you once a week, on visiting day, for a few weeks. Each time, you thought they were going to take you home. After a few m...

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... coursed, unchecked, down her gaunt face.
To this day, I can hear Dr. LeVann saying, dismissively, “These patients are nothing more than morons, imbeciles, and idiots.” I should remember it, I heard it several times a week for months. It was like a litany, drummed into all his staff. Although my university training backed up his theories, I quickly learned differently. I felt that many patients were unjustly condemned to live in a world that treated them with obvious disgust and disdain simply because they couldn’t communicate. I tried to speak up, Tedda, to no avail. I left after only nine months. You remained trapped, each regimented day slowly bleeding into the other, for another five years.
Thanks to your article, Tedda, as I walked back in time, I found hope, walking one step in front of me until it strode off the grounds. I thought I had lost it forever.