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

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{{FAformat
|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
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|Title= Western State Hospital Hopkinsville
|Image= Mendota03.jpg
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|Image= WHS3.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|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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|Body= Some time in the year 1863 the present able and successful Superintendent, Dr. James Rodman, took charge of the asylum. The total number of patients received and treated up to October 10, 1871, was 1.273. of whom 321 were then in the asylum. Calculated upon the number of patients received, 50.847 per cent were discharged restored, eight were discharged more or less improved, two were unimproved, one escaped and twenty-two died. There is (nearly) one insane person (October, 1871) in every 1,000 persons of the population, at least 1,400 in Kentucky, of whom there is room in the two asylums for only 850, and both are full.
  
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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The Kentucky General Assembly changed the name of the hospital to Western State Hospital in 1919. Investigations by state officials and the Welfare Committee in the late 1930s resulted in renovations and higher standards. In 1950, 2,200 patients were admitted as "incompetent" with loss of rights. Tranquilizers came into use in 1955. By the late 1950s, several psychotropic medications were being marketed and there was a deinstitutionalization effort to weed out patients that did not need to be at the facility.
  
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.  [[Mendota Mental Health Institute|Click here for more...]]
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Today Western State Hospital is a 222-bed psychiatric hospital serving individuals 18 or older from a 34-county area in western Kentucky. It provides acute psychiatric care for mentally ill patients, psychiatric rehabilitation for chronic mental illness and provides acute psychiatric care for geriatric patients. Its other two buildings include Western State Nursing Facility — a 144-bed treatment facility for mentally disabled geriatric residents that provides care for adults with severe and persistent mental illness who require nursing-facility level of care. Patients can only be admitted as transfers from state psychiatric facilities within Kentucky.  [[Western State Hospital Hopkinsville|Click here for more...]]
 
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Latest revision as of 05:27, 9 June 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Western State Hospital Hopkinsville


WHS3.jpg

Some time in the year 1863 the present able and successful Superintendent, Dr. James Rodman, took charge of the asylum. The total number of patients received and treated up to October 10, 1871, was 1.273. of whom 321 were then in the asylum. Calculated upon the number of patients received, 50.847 per cent were discharged restored, eight were discharged more or less improved, two were unimproved, one escaped and twenty-two died. There is (nearly) one insane person (October, 1871) in every 1,000 persons of the population, at least 1,400 in Kentucky, of whom there is room in the two asylums for only 850, and both are full.

The Kentucky General Assembly changed the name of the hospital to Western State Hospital in 1919. Investigations by state officials and the Welfare Committee in the late 1930s resulted in renovations and higher standards. In 1950, 2,200 patients were admitted as "incompetent" with loss of rights. Tranquilizers came into use in 1955. By the late 1950s, several psychotropic medications were being marketed and there was a deinstitutionalization effort to weed out patients that did not need to be at the facility.

Today Western State Hospital is a 222-bed psychiatric hospital serving individuals 18 or older from a 34-county area in western Kentucky. It provides acute psychiatric care for mentally ill patients, psychiatric rehabilitation for chronic mental illness and provides acute psychiatric care for geriatric patients. Its other two buildings include Western State Nursing Facility — a 144-bed treatment facility for mentally disabled geriatric residents that provides care for adults with severe and persistent mental illness who require nursing-facility level of care. Patients can only be admitted as transfers from state psychiatric facilities within Kentucky. Click here for more...