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

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{{FAformat
|Title= Whitby Psychiatric Hospital
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
|Image= Whitadmin.jpg
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= In 1911, the architect, James Govan, working with a team of advisory psychiatrists, physicians and government officials, presented his design for the Whitby Hospital. Govan's design called for a series of 16 cottages, each housing approximately 70 patients, situated in a village-like setting amongst winding treed avenues. While the exterior design of the cottages was strongly influenced by German architecture, any other similarity stopped there. Canadian physicians worked closely with their architect to make sure the Whitby Hospital would offer a calmer and more humane atmosphere for patients than other institutions they had seen in their travels. The buildings must be situated in such a way, said the physicians, that all wards in all cottages receive some form of direct sunlight, even during the shortest days. An overhead view of the site plan indicates that Govan did exactly that. The main group of cottages faced south west, slightly back from the shore of Lake Ontario.
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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.
  
In the initial building stages, prisoners from nearby Central Prison supplied much of the labor. During later stages of construction, paid laborers and mechanics worked for wages ranging from $0.55 to $1.00 per hour. To ease the transfer of building materials from the local railway station a mile to the north east, workers built a narrow gauge trunk-line across several fields of pasture into the construction site.  [[Whitby Psychiatric Hospital|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...