Out of Mind, Out of Sight(Sad, Essay on the Mental Health System)

[amyrose2712]

Hidalgo, Mexico, 1999. Though the sun is beginning to filter in through the barred windows, it's damp and cold in the men's ward at Fernando Ocaranza Psychiatric Hospital—no more than 50 degrees. Around the edges of the common room are tangled nests of men lying together in heaps, trying to stay warm. Others shuffle busily back and forth, as if they have a destination in mind. In the middle of the floor, running half the length of the ward, is a pool of urine.

Attendants prod a group of 15 or 20 naked men down a hallway into a shower room. The patients moan and shiver as a worker bathes them. Then they are herded back along the drafty hall, still dripping wet, and forced to compete with one another for items of clothing: shirts that cover only their shoulders, pants so large they have to be held up. A few pull on dresses, since women's clothing has been mixed in with the men's during washing.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/03/out-mind-out-sight

This is a dark window into the world of the forgotten.

[midnight]

1. Some mental health workers in Milwaukee Wisconsin are

having their overtime referred to as "casual overtime" and they are being harassed and manipulated via computer coding,monthly letters forcing them to bank their overtime. The patients have a low staff census for other reasons, but this certainly does not help. The world of behavior health is sacrificed for more acceptable forms of medical treatment.