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

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|Title= Long Grove Hospital
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
|Image= longgrove2.png
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= In 1903 building work began to the west of the Horton Asylum for the next mental facility planned by the LCC - the fourth institution of the Epsom cluster to be built on the Horton estate. Because of the damage caused to the local country roads by the constant delivery of building materials during the construction work on the previous Asylums, the contractors, Forster & Dickie, obtained a light railway order. They purchased 40 acres of land and the necessary sidings from the London & South West Railway Company at the cost of £10,000, and built a standard gauge railway to bring in workmen from London and building supplies. The first train-load of bricks and cement was delivered by the Long Grove Light Railway in April 1905.
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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.
  
Named after a nearby area of woodland, Long Grove Asylum opened in 1907. It had been built to almost the same design as the Bexley Hospital, as had its sister asylum, Horton Asylum. (Re-use of an already approved plan enabled the LCC to get swifter approval from the Commissioners in Lunacy than would a completely new plan.) Built of red brick with courses of yellow brick banding, the Asylum could accommodate 2000 patients. The improved financial situation of the LCC allowed more architectural embellishment and better standards of fittings and equipment than those at Bexley and Horton Asylums.
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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.
  
The central section of the Asylum contained the service buildings - the administration block, recreation hall, kitchens, main stores and staff quarters. The 3-storey administration building was flanked by 8 male and 8 female ward blocks. The female side contained the laundry, while on the male side were the boiler house and workshops. A large semi-circular corridor (open to one side) linked all the wards, while spur corridors linked the wards to the central blocks. The site also contained a water tower, a chapel, infirmary blocks and an isolation hospital. The Medical Superintendent had his own residence, as did other members of the senior staff.  [[Long Grove 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...