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

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|Title= St Elizabeths Hospital
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|Title= Hawaii State Hospital
|Image= St_Elizabeth_SH_Kirkbride.jpg
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|Image= HawaiiSH2.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= In November of 1852 a tract of land overlooking the Anacostia River was purchased for $25,000 from Thomas Blagden. Construction began almost immediately on the center building, a red brick fortress designed in Gothic revival style by Thomas U. Walter, who also designed the dome of the Capital Building. The hospital was built following the Kirkbride Plan, most of the construction of the center building was done by slaves. It opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane. The Hospital's early mission, as defined by its founder, the leading mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, was to provide the "most humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia." During the Civil War, wounded soldiers treated here were reluctant to admit that they were in an insane asylum, and said they were at St. Elizabeth's, the colonial name of the land where the Hospital is located. Congress officially changed the Hospital's name to St. Elizabeth's in 1916. By the 1940s, the Hospital complex covering an area of over 300 acres. At its peak, 4,000 people worked and 7,000 patients lived there. It was the first and only federal mental facility with a national scope. The first appropriation towards building the Government Hospital for the Insane was of $100,000, and was made by Congress in 1852 for the purchase of land. The organic act creating the institution and outlining the duties of its officers and providing for the admission of various classes of insane patients was not approved until March 3, 1855. The hospital, however, had been opened for the reception of patients on January 15,1855.
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|Body= On January 6, 1930 the Oahu Asylum closed and the U.S. Army moved the 549 patients to the new Territorial Hospital in Kaneohe. Even at its opening in 1930, the newly named Territorial Hospital was over-crowded, Overburdened facilities have been the situation ever since. It was not yet been possible for the Legislature to provide sufficient appropriations so that adequate buildings and staff could be maintained by the hospital, in spite of great advances in the hospital program itself. In 1939, the control of the Territorial Hospital was changed from the Board of Health, where it had been since its opening, to the newly formed Department of Institutions.
  
The creation of the hospital was due very largely to the activity of Dorothea L. Dix. She drew up with her own pen the outlines of the organic act establishing the institution, and virtually named its first superintendent , Dr. C. H. Nicholas. During the latter part of her life Miss Dix spent much of her time at the hospital, where quarters were always reserved for her, and the little desk upon which she drew up the original act creating the hospital stands in the board room in the main building.  [[St Elizabeths Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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World War II prevented further growth in the psychiatric field for a few years, but almost immediately after the war, starting in about 1946, a rapid surge of growth of our psychiatric facilities was noted. The private practice of psychiatry as a specialty received more interest, and additional offices opened one by one. The Territorial Hospital in Kaneohe was able to further modernize and develop its treatment program. The year 1948 marked the organization of the Neuro-Psychiatric Society of Hawaii.
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In 1972 there were only 200 patients actually in residence at the State Hospital (even though the rate of first admissions has continued to climb as the population of the State soars over 750,000). Some of the older original buildings are now used by the Windward Community School.  [[Hawaii State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 05:58, 16 February 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

Hawaii State Hospital


HawaiiSH2.jpg

On January 6, 1930 the Oahu Asylum closed and the U.S. Army moved the 549 patients to the new Territorial Hospital in Kaneohe. Even at its opening in 1930, the newly named Territorial Hospital was over-crowded, Overburdened facilities have been the situation ever since. It was not yet been possible for the Legislature to provide sufficient appropriations so that adequate buildings and staff could be maintained by the hospital, in spite of great advances in the hospital program itself. In 1939, the control of the Territorial Hospital was changed from the Board of Health, where it had been since its opening, to the newly formed Department of Institutions.

World War II prevented further growth in the psychiatric field for a few years, but almost immediately after the war, starting in about 1946, a rapid surge of growth of our psychiatric facilities was noted. The private practice of psychiatry as a specialty received more interest, and additional offices opened one by one. The Territorial Hospital in Kaneohe was able to further modernize and develop its treatment program. The year 1948 marked the organization of the Neuro-Psychiatric Society of Hawaii.

In 1972 there were only 200 patients actually in residence at the State Hospital (even though the rate of first admissions has continued to climb as the population of the State soars over 750,000). Some of the older original buildings are now used by the Windward Community School. Click here for more...