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Deinstitutionalization Of State Mental Hospital Essay

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Deinstitutionalization of State Mental Hospitals Deinstitutionalization of State Mental Hospitals in the Early 1960’s Deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals is a government policy that saw the movement of mental health patients from government-run insane asylums to community mental health centers funded by the federal government. It started in the 1960s as an approach to improve treatment of those affected by mental conditions. One of the fundamental aims of this program was to relieve the government of substantial burdens because of the weighty financial resources that were committed for the treatment of the victims. Between 1994 and 1955, approximately more than 487, 000 mentally ill patients were identified and discharged from state-funded facilities (Lamb, 1984). This saw the initial number reduce to as low as 72, 000 patients. It followed that most of the state hospitals were shut down to pave the way for community funding toward this treatment program. The decision led to a permanent reduction of the availability of in-patient care facilities of the people with mental disorders. There were around 43,000 beds available to address the needs of the psychiatric patients (Lamb, 1984). Taking a keen analysis of this deficiency that …show more content…

Specifically, more than 300, 000 people were held in jails and prisons in the 1960s. This means that 16% of the people who were held in correction centers as inmates were totally mentally ill (Scruening, 1997). This implies that there was a need for increasing the number of beds by about 100, 000 in both private and public hospitals. Based on the statistics unveiled above, it is justified that the number of the mentally ill people held in prisons was more than those being given treatment in hospitals. Specifically, the number in prison was thrice the number under

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This enabled the people to live in the community and exercise their freedoms. In the 1950s and 60s, close to 80 percent of all the beds in Ontario 's’ psychiatric hospitals were closed. A report in 1988 saying that the Provincial Community Mental Health Committee of Ontario, incited an important shift towards a community-based approach to mental health services. However, it is clear that Ontario’s community-based approach to mental health treatment is far from complete or acceptable. In less then 20 years from closing the beds, numerous people have began to recognize that without the necessary community services in place, deinstitutionalization has been a

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