I recently visited a former State Hospital in Massachusetts. The Hospital was originally a TB & Insane Asylum. One of the buildings we visited was Violent Women’s Psych ward. Handling those with significant mental health issues is no doubt a significant challenge. The conditions that patients were held in this ward are seemingly as harsh as those in prison. Small barren cells, with small windows. The inside of the doors covered in scratches and scrape marks from those held inside. An apparently bloody bathtub remains in a disassembled bathroom. Large ducts stand in the attic appearing like a transformer ready to spring to action. In the woods nearby hundreds of nameless graves remain, with small markers barely taller than the small plants growing on the forrest floor. I can only hope those who would have been in institutions a generation ago are better off in the now common group homes which have become common.
