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

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|Title= Friern Hospital
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
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|Body= Built to ease pressure on the first Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell, which was severely overcrowded, the second pauper asylum for Middlesex opened in 1851 at Colney Hatch. It had 1250 beds and was the largest and most modern asylum in Europe. The intention was that the Hanwell Asylum would take patients from west London and the Colney Hatch Asylum those from east London. (However, this proved administratively impossible as no-one had devised a scheme as to how east London patients already in Hanwell could be transferred to Colney Hatch. Hanwell remained overcrowded.)
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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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The 119 acre site had been chosen because the Great Northern Railway was being constructed to pass alongside it (similarly, the Hanwell Asylum had been built beside the Grand Junction Canal, so that bulk supplies such as coal could easily be brought in). The foundation stone was laid by the Prince Consort in 1849 and the building was completed in the record time of 19 months on November 1850. Even while it was under construction, it had been enlarged to accommodate 1250 patients instead of the originally planned 1000. Furnishing and staffing of the Asylum took a further six months.
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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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The original cost of the Italianate-style building, with its ventilation towers and central cupola, had been established at £150,000, but the true cost proved to be double that - £300,000. At £240 per bed it was the most expensive asylum ever built. It was also the longest - 1884 feet (about 600 metres) - as the Commissioners in Lunacy wished that it be no more than two storeys high (although the sloping nature of the site meant that the wings were three storeys high). Within the buildings were six miles of corridors. The estate had its own water supply and it own farm of 75 acres, on which many of the patients were employed. It also had its own cemetery (which was in use until 1873) and a chapel.  [[Friern 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...

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