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Deinstitutionalization Of State Mental Hospital Essay

1433 Words6 Pages

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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