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

From Asylum Projects
Jump to: navigation, search
(193 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{FAformat
 
{{FAformat
−
|Title= Maine School for Feeble Minded
+
|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
−
|Image= maineFMI.png
+
|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
−
|Body= From 1907 when the Maine Legislature decided to establish a school for "idiotic and feeble-minded" children until 1996 when that institution closed its doors, doctors, social workers, parents, legislators and community advocates discussed and debated the nature of the problem of developmental disabilities in children and adults and the best way for the state to care for those individuals. The enabling legislation passed in 1907 specified that the residents of the new facility would be between ages 3 and 21. When the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded opened, the "patients" lived at Hill Farm on the New Gloucester property. As the population of the facility grew rapidly, so did the building of large dormitories. Gray and Staples halls were the first dorms. Planners had thought residents would live in small units, but that was not practical due to the ever-growing number of residents.
+
|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.
  
−
The population grew rapidly for several reasons. First, some medical personnel and caregivers had a goal of sending all developmentally disabled persons to institutions. Also, judges sometimes send people to the facility because they were poor or orphans with no one to care for them. In one well-known case, the state removed residents of Malaga Island off Phippsburg from the island in 1912. Many of the residents were mixed race and some, when removed from the island, were sent to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded. Graves in the cemetery at Malaga were dug up and reinterred at the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded cemetery.
+
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.
  
−
At times the residents of the institution were largely forgotten by most people in Maine. At other times, they and the facility were closely scrutinized. The history of Pineland offers insights into Maine's treatment of persons with disabilities and a window into national movements and beliefs about such care over nearly a century. Further, the institution never kept to the original legislation specifying that it would serve those ages 3-21. Older persons were residents and few people left at any age, at least legally. Over the years, many residents escaped from the facility, some permanently.  [[Maine School for Feeble Minded|Click here for more...]]
+
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.  [[Mendota Mental Health Institute|Click here for more...]]
 
}}
 
}}

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...

Retrieved from "http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Portal:Featured_Article_Of_The_Week&oldid=39920"