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

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|Title= St Elizabeths Hospital
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|Title= Philadelphia State Hospital
|Image= St_Elizabeth_SH_Kirkbride.jpg
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|Image= Byberrtitle.jpg
 
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|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.  [[St Elizabeths Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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|Body= Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry (PSH) was a psychiatric hospital in northeast Philadelphia, first city and later state-operated. During its tenure as a psychiatric hospital it was known by several names- Philadelphia State Hospital, Byberry State Hospital, Byberry City Farms, and the Philadelphia Hospital for Mental Diseases. However, most of the local population referred to it simply as "Byberry". Like many state facilities of the period, it was designated to care for individuals with various cognitive and psychiatric conditions, ranging from intellectual disabilities to forensic pathologies. When operational, it was located on a large sprawling campus within the Somerton neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Byberry stood in operation from 1903 until 1990, when it became nationally infamous for patient abuse, warehousing of human beings, and extreme neglect exhibited towards its many residents. At its zenith in the late 1960's, it was the largest state hospital in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and held a clinical population of over seven thousand psychiatric patients. Today, much of the physical site of the former state hospital has been demolished, and the land has been sold off to local redevelopers, who have transformed much of the campus into a residential community for seniors. Many of the former patients were discharged to: local boarding homes, community rehabilitative residences (CRR), long-term structure residences (LTSR), community living arrangements (CLA) and outpatient community clinics (BSU's). Acute patients from Byberry were transferred to other state psychiatric facilities, such as those at Norristown State Hospital and Haverford State Hospital. However, a large portion of those patients discharged had no disposition at release.  [[Philadelphia State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:10, 2 May 2021

Featured Article Of The Week

Philadelphia State Hospital


Byberrtitle.jpg

Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry (PSH) was a psychiatric hospital in northeast Philadelphia, first city and later state-operated. During its tenure as a psychiatric hospital it was known by several names- Philadelphia State Hospital, Byberry State Hospital, Byberry City Farms, and the Philadelphia Hospital for Mental Diseases. However, most of the local population referred to it simply as "Byberry". Like many state facilities of the period, it was designated to care for individuals with various cognitive and psychiatric conditions, ranging from intellectual disabilities to forensic pathologies. When operational, it was located on a large sprawling campus within the Somerton neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Byberry stood in operation from 1903 until 1990, when it became nationally infamous for patient abuse, warehousing of human beings, and extreme neglect exhibited towards its many residents. At its zenith in the late 1960's, it was the largest state hospital in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and held a clinical population of over seven thousand psychiatric patients. Today, much of the physical site of the former state hospital has been demolished, and the land has been sold off to local redevelopers, who have transformed much of the campus into a residential community for seniors. Many of the former patients were discharged to: local boarding homes, community rehabilitative residences (CRR), long-term structure residences (LTSR), community living arrangements (CLA) and outpatient community clinics (BSU's). Acute patients from Byberry were transferred to other state psychiatric facilities, such as those at Norristown State Hospital and Haverford State Hospital. However, a large portion of those patients discharged had no disposition at release. Click here for more...