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

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|Title= Dixmont State Hospital
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|Title= Western State Hospital Hopkinsville
|Image= Dixmont Vint 09.jpg
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|Image= WHS3.jpg
 
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|Body= The Western Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in Pittsburgh in 1848 as a general hospital that treated all types of illnesses and became the first institution in western Pennsylvania to offer treatment for the insane. When the Insane Department of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital was moved to a new building in Kilbuck Township outside of Pittsburgh in 1862 it was renamed the Western Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Dixmont to honor the memory of Dorothea Dix, an advocate for reforming the treatment of mental patients. The Dixmont Hospital was legally separated from the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in 1907 when it was individually incorporated as the Dixmont Hospital for the Insane. Supported by private contributions since 1852, it was primarily state appropriations that enabled the hospital to expand its facilities and care for an increasing number of mentally ill persons over the first nine decades of its existence. Despite receiving state appropriations, it nonetheless continued to operate as a private corporation until 1945 when it was taken over by the Department of Public Welfare. From that date, it operated under the name Dixmont State Hospital until it closed in July 1984.
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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.
  
The Western Pennsylvania Hospital was one of the earlier asylums built on the Kirkbride plan, with three crooked wings stretching to each side of administration; one wing for male and the other for female patients. By the end of the 1800's, the resident population grew to over 1,200 and a nursing school was established in 1895. As with most asylums, Dixmont became overcrowded to the point that it was not accepting new admissions.  [[Dixmont State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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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.
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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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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...