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Harrisburg State Hospital Closing
Opinion Column: 'Liberating' mentally ill
isn't helping
Sunday, June 12, 2005
©2005 The
Patriot-News
PAT CARROLL
The idea that the state should take care of the mentally ill dies
hard. Growing up, I was taught that Gov. Pinchot got the farmer
out of the mud by building roads into rural areas -- and that Gov.
Leader brought the mentally ill into hospitals that took them seriously
as people and as patients.
I can't vouch for either of those legends.
But I know that some mental-health advocates have always seen the
state as keeping the patients prisoner. They asked the courts to
prevent patients at state mental hospitals from doing the physical
work of keeping up the grounds.
I had a friend who worked inside Harrisburg State Hospital at the
time. He told me patients who had been working simply stopped being
functional. They had no work to do. They had nothing to do. No chores
to look forward to, no heart's ease at the end of a workday.
On the other side of the equation, they were no longer being used
by the system as cheap labor.
We all need to be useful and used. It is as deep a human need as
having a family or watching a sunset, and as easily set aside by
people with a cause. For the patients, the usefulness evaporated.
Soon the institution will.
The discharge of about half of the patients at Harrisburg State
Hospital into the community is bizarre.
People who have been locked away for years will just be OK with
that?
I'd like to believe the state wants somehow to provide for the
mentally ill in a community setting, blah blah blah.
But in fact I believe the fix is in. I believe that the breathtaking
grounds of Harrisburg State Hospital are very attractive to real
estate developers. Have all the hearings you want, someone will
make a bundle here.
Why do I believe that?
Because I see the mentally ill who are already in a community setting.
I see them downtown all week.
I see Tennis Ball Man, who used to bounce a ball as he rooted though
trash cans on Market Street. Down through the years, he has lost
the ball. One hand still makes the motion, though, as the other
hand parses the garbage.
I see Sharp Dressed Man, he of the game leg and the big wave, sporting
a white cowboy hat above his thrift-shop suit and worn tie. I remember
the Old Evil Eye Woman who slept on the floor of the Market Street
post office at night, until the post office played a trick and started
locking its doors at night. Ha ha. What a good trick.
I hope someone at a group home tucks all of them in at night, but
I doubt it.
Why do I doubt it?
Because I see how little we do for the physically handicapped.
More than 70 percent of the blind, lame, deaf and dumb are out
of work, mostly because they look odd. Yet jobs today are office
jobs, service jobs, that most of the disabled can do and be happy
doing.
Aside from Weis Markets and Wal-Mart, and the heroic work of Pennsylvania
Industries for the Blind and Handicapped, there are few helping
hands.
But we'll do better with liberated mental patients?
PAT CARROLL: 255-8149 or pcarroll@patriot-news.com
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