A modern asylum: the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital
Dear Pete,
Why not bring back a state hospital system where clients have a safe place to live, can progress, work, and receive compensation? Involve patients rights groups, and THROW AWAY the “our pill can cure everyone” lie bought by Congress and even the Surgeon General. Big Pharma sure sold us the Brooklyn Bridge and we have paid way too much for it. Our loved ones still are paying for it.
“There used to be state hospitals. some better than others. I can only cite the old Napa State Hospital in California. It used to be where individuals could stabilize in locked units (for their safety and other’s). As they became more stable, they moved to less restrictive units where they could gain employment or move into the community. As they continued on their recovery path, they could get housing in the community. At one point, the hospital had a working farm where individuals could work, including a dairy, garden, etc. This community had their own coin laundry, canteen, salon, a lake you could walk to and sit by, tennis courts….and a general post office, all on grounds.
“I worked there, long after it ceased to be a working and partially self-sustaining entity. By then the ‘patients’ had nothing to look forward to, nothing to increase their self-esteem, nothing but the same daily routine every day. If they did improve and work, they had to be paid minimum wage but many were not reliable, not fire-able, in short, everyone lost.”
Sincerely, Vickie Williams, wife, mother, daughter, Psychiatric Tech, BSN/RN retired.
Why does talk about bringing back state hospitals make me nervous?
I suggested in my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, that we needed to reconsider shuttering state hospitals.
I am in favor of repealing the IMD Exclusion that prevents most psychiatric facilities from getting Medicaid if they have more than 16 beds. We are in the midst of a national psychiatric bed shortage. As was pointed out last week in a Manhattan Institute analysis, it’s obvious that many individuals with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, are not getting treatment in community settings because they need longer term care. Plus, a lack of long-term beds contributes to jails and prisons housing individuals whose only real crime is that they got sick.
Reporter Ben Finley, writing in the 
