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

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|Title= Mimico Asylum
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
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|Body= The history of this institution begins on January 20, 1890, when the Mimico Branch Asylum, as it was then known, opened its doors to 116 patients from Toronto. Established to house “the chronic insane” from across the province, the Asylum was situated on 60 acres of land to the west of Toronto, just outside of the village of Mimico on the shore of Lake Ontario. The Mimico site was chosen both for its centrality to other provincial asylums and for its healthy, tranquil rural location. It also included the 125 acre North Farm situated near the main hospital grounds, and after 1903, the adjacent McNeill Farm of approximately 73 acres. As its name suggests, the Asylum was initially established as a branch of the Asylum for the Insane, Toronto (as then known) located at 999 Queen Street West. By 1894, however, the province concluded that it was not economically viable for a single site to assume responsibility for the province’s entire population of chronic patients. Consequently, Mimico was made an independent institution with its own territorial catchment area and renamed the Mimico Asylum. Mimico’s catchment area comprised the counties of Peel, Simcoe, Ontario, Victoria, and Peterborough, and the districts of Muskoka, Parry Sound, Nippissing, Algoma, Thunder Bay, and Rainy River.
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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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Like all other provincial asylums, the Mimico Asylum was administered by the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Charities, which was a part of the Department of the Provincial Secretary. After 1930, however, responsibility for these institutions was transferred to the provincial Department of Health. Overseen by a variety of branches and divisions within the Department’s jurisdiction, the hospital continued to operate under its auspices until Health Minister Dennis Timbrell made the decision to close the facility effective September 1, 1979.  [[Mimico Asylum|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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