Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Gowanda State Hospital
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
|Image= Gowanda01.jpg
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
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|Body= Gowanda State Hospital was built by the architectural firm of Esenwein and Johnson who had an architectural practice in Buffalo, New York. The firm was administered by August Carl Esenwein (1856 – 1926) and James Addison Johnson (1865 –1939). They were the architects for Gowanda State Hospital from 1896 to 1912. Gowanda Osteopathic Hospital opened its first building in 1896 upon the 500 acre tract removed from the Taylor Farm by the state of New York. Taylor had previously bequested this acreage to his many nieces and nephews.
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|Body= Mendota opened on July 14, 1860 when it admitted a patient who had been brought all the way from Oconto County...a long trip by horse and wagon. Even though the hospital was not yet ready to open, that Saturday it was decided that, because of the distance the patient had been brought, he should be received. Thus began Mendota's ready response to the needs of patients and communities, which has been its tradition.
  
Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital West Group was described in the 1930s as having 1,254 beds, having treated 1,429 patients that year by 6 house staff, with the result of a history of 4.1% deaths. There are also 10 homeopathic physicians working as consultants from the western New York area. Patients were treated under strict Homeopathic auspices. The medical complex consisted of two-story wings projecting from the main building, two three-story pavilion style buildings, two pavilions for patients with tuberculosis (TB), power house, laundry, kitchen, main dining room building, and smaller dining rooms in several buildings, farm, workshops, nurses home, store room, amusement hall/auditorium, main staff house, and superintendent’s resident -- all built prior to 1946.
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Mendota has gone through many changes since then, some of them dramatized in the changes in its name. It opened as an "Asylum", appropriate in an era when little could be done for the mentally ill except to house and care for them...i.e. to give them asylum...when their families and communities could no longer cope with their needs.
  
GSH also had a Hospital Nursing School, which trained employees for the facility. A graduate program was held every year on the hospital grounds in September. It included an overture, processional, invocation, solo by a singer, address, presentation of new nurses, the administration of the Nurses’ oath, and a benediction in the program. Nurse uniforms were the traditional nurses’ white cap and a seersucker dress with a white apron. The average class was coed. Many of the orderlies at GSH were Seneca Indians who lived on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation property that abutted the state hospital property. The hospital maintained an archery range, a three-hole full sized golf course, a pond stocked with fish, and a recreational center with movies shown in two showings on Saturdays. [[Gowanda State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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In a later era, when patients were recognized as having an illness...mental illness...the name was changed to Mendota State Hospital, reflecting its responsibility for providing treatment.
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In more recent times, with the discovery of psychiatric medications and with new approaches (some of which resulted from research at Mendota itself) it became possible for the mentally ill to be treated in community hospitals and clinics. But there remained a need for a place for those who required more specialized treatment than most community hospitals and clinics could provide, and where the tradition of research, education, and consultation that Mendota had already established could continue. Mendota was then changed to its present name of Mendota Mental Health Institute. [[Mendota Mental Health Institute|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:45, 2 August 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

Mendota Mental Health Institute


Mendota03.jpg

Mendota opened on July 14, 1860 when it admitted a patient who had been brought all the way from Oconto County...a long trip by horse and wagon. Even though the hospital was not yet ready to open, that Saturday it was decided that, because of the distance the patient had been brought, he should be received. Thus began Mendota's ready response to the needs of patients and communities, which has been its tradition.

Mendota has gone through many changes since then, some of them dramatized in the changes in its name. It opened as an "Asylum", appropriate in an era when little could be done for the mentally ill except to house and care for them...i.e. to give them asylum...when their families and communities could no longer cope with their needs.

In a later era, when patients were recognized as having an illness...mental illness...the name was changed to Mendota State Hospital, reflecting its responsibility for providing treatment.

In more recent times, with the discovery of psychiatric medications and with new approaches (some of which resulted from research at Mendota itself) it became possible for the mentally ill to be treated in community hospitals and clinics. But there remained a need for a place for those who required more specialized treatment than most community hospitals and clinics could provide, and where the tradition of research, education, and consultation that Mendota had already established could continue. Mendota was then changed to its present name of Mendota Mental Health Institute. Click here for more...