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

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|Title= Milwaukee County Asylum
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|Title= Ionia State Hospital
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|Image= Ionia.jpg
 
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|Body= Milwaukee's first mental hospital, known as the Milwaukee County Asylum for the Chronic Insane, opened in 1880 on the County Grounds in Wauwatosa. The state reimbursed the county $1.50 a week for every patient in its care. At the peak of institutionalization in the 1940s and '50s, Milwaukee County housed some 6,000 people with mental illness in several locations. Accommodations were anything but lavish, usually two to a room, sleeping on cots and sharing a sink. There was no psychiatry or meaningful therapy, said Bill Baker, who worked there as an internist. People were basically drugged and warehoused.
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|Body= The building of the Ionia State Hospital was authorized in 1883 and was opened under the name of the Michigan Asylum for Insane Criminals in 1885. It was found that this name was objectionable as not all of the patients in the hospital were criminals, so the name was changed by legislative action to Ionia State Hospital. The patients committed to this hospital were insane felons, criminal sexual psychopaths, insane convicts from other prisons, patients transferred from other state institutions that had developed dangerous or homicidal tendencies and persons charged with a crime but acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Initially the hospital patients were housed at the site of the Michigan Reformatory.
  
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There were three wards at what we then called the Milwaukee County Infirmary when I, B. Hanson, worked in the Activity Department in the late 1970's; two wards for men and one for women. There were 60 residents to a ward. Their beds were about 4 feet apart, with a nightstand for personal effects.
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The hospital was called the North Branch and the farm located on Riverside Drive was called the South Branch. When a large fire broke out at the hospital, all of the rooms were needed to house prisoners, so all of the hospital patients were sent to the South Branch farm. Since that time, the hospital has been located on the grounds of the Riverside Correctional Facility. The hospital was used to treat the mentally ill as well as the criminally insane until 1972, when civilians were removed from the hospital. In 1977, the Legislature transferred the operation to the Department of Corrections when it began operation as a correctional facility. The facility was closed with the reopening of the Michigan Reformatory.  [[Ionia State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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The activities department was run by OT professionals. There were dexterity and mental projects provided to the residents, as well as field trips, walks outside, arts and crafts and basic education for them to keep busy. Teams of all the staff involved, from doctors to the janitor, met monthly to discuss each resident's situation in order to be aware of medical, social or behavioral issues. I remember a discussion with the doctors regarding too much anti-psychotic meds for a resident--I felt his tongue lolling might embarrass him on a bowling excursion in public. The meds were adjusted.  [[Milwaukee County Asylum|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 04:56, 5 May 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Ionia State Hospital


Ionia.jpg

The building of the Ionia State Hospital was authorized in 1883 and was opened under the name of the Michigan Asylum for Insane Criminals in 1885. It was found that this name was objectionable as not all of the patients in the hospital were criminals, so the name was changed by legislative action to Ionia State Hospital. The patients committed to this hospital were insane felons, criminal sexual psychopaths, insane convicts from other prisons, patients transferred from other state institutions that had developed dangerous or homicidal tendencies and persons charged with a crime but acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Initially the hospital patients were housed at the site of the Michigan Reformatory.

The hospital was called the North Branch and the farm located on Riverside Drive was called the South Branch. When a large fire broke out at the hospital, all of the rooms were needed to house prisoners, so all of the hospital patients were sent to the South Branch farm. Since that time, the hospital has been located on the grounds of the Riverside Correctional Facility. The hospital was used to treat the mentally ill as well as the criminally insane until 1972, when civilians were removed from the hospital. In 1977, the Legislature transferred the operation to the Department of Corrections when it began operation as a correctional facility. The facility was closed with the reopening of the Michigan Reformatory. Click here for more...

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