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

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|Title= Brockville Asylum for the Insane
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
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|Body= The Brockville Psychiatric Hospital opened as the ‘Eastern Hospital for the Insane’ on a park-like setting overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The property, measuring 400 by 1,127 metres, was originally known as Pickens Point and extended from the Grand Trunk Railway on the north to the St. Lawrence River to the south. The cafeteria in the existing facility still retains the name ‘Pickens Point’, and is renowned for the high-quality, delicious meals offered to staff, clients and visitors alike. The hospital building was dominated by a seven-storey tower 128 feet high, and the foundation and detailed features were constructed using blue limestone quarried on the site, as well as “polished Bay of Fundy granite columns and arches of Gloucester stone from quarries in the Ottawa area.” The patient population upon opening consisted of 73 individuals transferred to the site from Mimico, Ontario (near Orillia). Treatment ‘cottages’ were built on each side of the main building, three to the east for the women, three to the west for the men. Each cottage has 38 single rooms for patients as well as dormitories, day rooms, attendants’ rooms, storerooms, pantries, bathrooms, etc. At 12 feet wide with 12 foot high ceilings, the cottage corridors were large and airy. The original administrative/treatment/residential complex was designed as a single grouping of structures and embodied the architectural characteristics of a modified cottage hospital of the late 19th century. For the layout and design of the administration and main buildings, the Chief Architect reportedly utilized the plans and elevations of an existing operation, the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane at Middletown Connecticut, which had been erected in 1880-81.
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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.
  
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In 1903 the School of Nursing opened with one student who was given a two-year course in nursing the mentally ill. This was one of Ontario’s first nursing programs to specialize in psychiatric care. Enrollment in the program continued to grow as more hospitals specializing in mental health care opened across the province and the need for qualified nurses grew.  [[Brockville Asylum for the Insane|Click here for more...]]
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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.
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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...

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