Comments on: Episode 27: From Insane Asylum to Psychiatric Center: A Brief History

By: susan elwell

susan elwell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:26:30 +0000

so tim you are right i worked there for 20 years and yes the doctors did live in the nice houses and they used staff for house keeping and a lot of things went on there. Thats why the place is haunted. A lot of angry patents who were used for experiments on drugs and our 8th floor surgerys so tim stick to your guns. its improved but has a long way to to.

By: susan elwell

susan elwell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:23:48 +0000

Yes there was a potters field. It was next to Ross Pav and when they put in a housing unit on Dorsey lane they found the bodies.

By: Roger Christenfeld

Roger Christenfeld — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:41:08 +0000

Reading Mr. D’s reports of his time in the HRSH adolescent unit, I am sad that his stay was so unpleasant, happy that the scene has improved dramatically in these 40 years, and grateful for his insights. I agree strongly that such first-hand accounts are vital. The major advance in public psychiatry in our time, I believe, is not the improvement in medication but the empowerment of clients and their families in setting goals and selecting treatments. But therapeutic progress has always hinged on thoughtful attention to the patient’s wishes and unfailing respect for our common humanity.
Unfortunately I cannot answer Mr. D’s specific questions because they concern a time before my own experience. I can say that HRSH never had its own cemetery, and the total grounds are now much reduced, with no staff housing, and no clients under age 18. The brutal practices he cites are now unknown and social events are less invidious, with many parties including both patients and staff.
Still, this is not a country club but a hospital, where the goal is to restore patients to a rewarding life. That means there is an ethical tension between our need to treat patients as autonomous and our responsibility to care for them, sometimes involving more control than is comfortable. There also remains, as Tim experienced, a conflict between the requirements of an organization and the desires of its individual members, a conflict especially troublesome in congregate living situations. Army barracks and college dorms can also seem impersonal and regimented. Catering to common denominators usually means the food won’t be very tasty.
We’re still imperfect here, much better than we were, still striving to improve. In all, it’s certainly better to be at liberty, and I wish Mr. D well.

By: Tim D.

Tim D. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:29:13 +0000

12./ Just down the hill from Hillcrest stood a building we kids were told was “Cottage 9″. But in either 1970 or 71 is was closed and torn down. What type of patients were housed in “the cottages”?

13./ When you go down the far opposite (north) side of the same hill (where Ross Pavilion was to be exact), go past that underground bomb shelter, and continue north on the same road which leads to Dorsey Street, you go past a little beach which we kids were taken to in 1969 and 1970 to swim in, but was closed that fall, never re-opened, and subsequently turned to swamp. I was told by some friends that the hospital wanted to use this beach to discharge waste, and by others that it would be used to dump expired patient medication. Which answer is correct?

By: Tim D.

Tim D. — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:34:42 +0000

11./ Prior to 1973, the year when the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was no longer considered a sexual orientation disorder, how were patients at H. R. S. H. treated who were gay or suspected of being gay or lesbian? Were they subjected to dehumanizing treatment in order to force them to “turn straight”? If so, how soon after the 1973 A. P. A. ruling were the staff at H. R. S. H. forced to leave them alone?

By: Tim D.

Tim D. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:39:26 +0000

10./ For the adolescent patients after 1974 who found state equivalency programs unsatisfactory and refused to take that test, were they allowed to go off the H. R. S. H. grounds to attend a public high school where they could take the N. Y. S. Regents College Preparatory program, be in a yearbook, be in a nice high school graduation ceremony, and have all of the nice frills that kids on the outside of the hospital took for granted?

By: Tim D.

Tim D. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:31:40 +0000

9./ Where on the hospital grounds were child patients treated before Hillcrest was opened in the early ’60’s? What type of education were they given? When Hillcrest closed in 1973 or 1974, what building were the kids transfered to who could not be placed in community group housing or foster care and whose parents would not or could not take them home? What type of schooling were they given at that point?

By: Tim D

Tim D — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:11:57 +0000

Four more questions:

5./ Were involuntary sterilizations ever performed at H. R. S. H.?

6./ Aside from simply overseeing the operations at this big hospital, just what did Dr. Cheney & Dr. Snow do for the patients that was of such monumental significance that they would name buildings on the hospital grounds after them?

7./ When did the dehumanizing practice start of cutting the hair short of newly admitted patients who had long hair even if they wanted to keep it long and were capable of taking care of it themselves?

8./ When did it stop?

By: Tim D

Tim D — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:43:59 +0000

To Michael Britt AND Roger Christenfeld:

Now that I have shared all these awful memories, I was wondering if you could please do some more reseach in order to answer some questions I’ve always had about
H. R. S. H.:

1./ Whenever a patient died there, what did the hospital typically do with his or her corpse, particularly if the deceased patient had no remaining family members or ones that actually gave a damn about them? I was told many years ago that H. R. S. H. had its own cemetery, but when I came back many years later after its closing to wander through this ghost town, I could never locate it.

2./ Why in fact were employees of the hospital allowed to live in nice housing that was right on the hospital grounds, and why were some employees even allowed to construct houses of their own on the grounds? Whenever group homes are started up in the community, there are always neighbors who protest this even though they find nothing wrong with the employees and their undisciplined kids invading OUR areas of residence.

3./ When the labor unions finally mandated 8 hour work days and higher wages for the hospital employees, why were they still allowed to keep their on grounds housing instead of evicting them and converting them right at that time into half-way housing for stablized patients or outpatients?

4./ Whenever the sons or daughters of the doctors who lived in beautiful apartments or houses on the H. R. S. H. grounds came of age and were given “coming out to society parties” where many of the other doctors and their spouses would be invited, none of the patients were invited. Why were we discriminated against? Also, whenever an employment anniversary or retirement party would be held for any paid employee, none of the patients were ever invited. Why was this so?

So with all this testimony you have even more evidence to support my previous statement that “H. R. S. H. was run like a medieval manor where the patients were the cerfs.”

Your response to this would be most appreciated.

By: Tim D

Tim D — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:08:54 +0000

By the time I was in Hillcrest, 40 years ago to be exact, there were no more farms, bakeries or slaughterhouses on the grounds (I refuse to refer to the H. R. S. H. grounds as a “campus” because they were not refered to as such back in those days), the baking was all done by unionized state workers, and we patients were all stuck with the remaining dirty work. Our milk products were supplied by Fitchett Bros. Dairy and Pickwick Ice Cream, who were most probably the lowest bidders for the service contract. The ice cream was loaded with artificial additives even though the staff could always afford the more expensive “all natural” products for themselves and THEIR families. Whenever any of us remarked about the occassional oniony taste of the milk, the attendants would say “Oh the cows were probably eating onion grass.” Though there were nice, thoughtful volunteer groups who would set up nice birthday, Christmas, and Easter parties, I remember the last Easter party in 1972 which turned out to be a disaster because someone put salt in the cookies instead of sugar. In spite of this, the staff said we ought to be grateful for the party anyway and we were still forced to clean up after them. To the hospital staff, our feelings meant nothing because we as child patients were viewed as nothing.