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Show y h)(gS " ' " : ... Ity-fwr' ' ;.. j!:;f,'-- ; Sterna if :; ' i 1 Ptiij nliipDf ill . spite of sporadic campaigns, the nation's No. 1 health problem still gets In pitiful treatment; here's what could be done. - The author has been a persistent crusader for better treatment of mental illness. A series of his. article that spotlighted the short- mnm by Al Ostrow ininir Fa,. ' if . " m--m I .. comings of Cali- fornia mental institutions resulted m a $250 million ,foraL$ucesibiLc to permit California county hospitals to establish clinics. Later, in Ohio, Ostrow worked incognito as a ward attendant at Cleveland State Hospital to facts for an expose of unsatisfacget first-hatory conditions there. This caused a dramatic improvement in patient care, andftoon him a mental-treatme- nt nd Public Service Award from the Cleveland Guild. Newspaper ' Sen.Frank J. Lausche, then governor of Ohio, credits Ostrow' s reporting toith. being a major factor in winning voter approval of a state bond issue providing $75 million for mental-Hospit- al improvements. Now a staff writer for the Cleveland Press, Ostrow is a member of the National Committee Against Mental Illness. . 12 Fcmily Wetkly, September 21, H5S nation's mental hospitals better known until recently as insane asylums and "snake, pits." "From the outside, most of these institutions have a pleasantly landscaped campus atmosphere. But the trees and lawns receive more attention and better care than many of the 800,000 patients inside. Within the locked wards is the awful odor of decayed lives wasting away in wretchedness and neglect with seemingly no hope of cure. Decades of spasmodic reform wavesmajor advances in medical science, and billions of dollars worth of new buildings have failed to end the shame of our mental hospitals. Many thousands have benefited from the continu ing improvements, but the majority of state hospital patients continue to cower in the dreary drabness of ' mental-Hospit- al moderniza tion program in that state and won for Ostrow the international Lasker Award in 1948. He also received a "Christian journalism" gold medal from the Catholic Newsmen's Association he bright face of America is speckled by 586 islands of misery and despair. These are the , overcrowaeov unaeretaneaBgnua! stitutions where little or nothing is done to cure .. their mental illness. i of of state the official Ohio, Listen to an report considered a progressive state in matters generally of public welfare: "Tnttprinir. elderlv men and women . . . herded about like human cattle . . , sleeping in fetid firetrap ilnrmitnrips with rows of beds OnlV inches apart . . . squatting numbly on rickety benches and chairs in dismal day rooms . . . eating "messy, unpalatable meals , . . spending their twilight years in a miasma' of misery. t ' "It Is. regrettable to say, but in many instances the humane societies of Ohio see to it that animals are given better treatment, than' human beings. . . . "Living conditions, or existing conditions, for the majority of patients, have not been and are not conducive to rapid recovery, if recovery is to be had at all. . . ." The report was written by State Auditor James A. Rhodes, former mayor of Columbus and past presi- dent of the Amateur Athletic Union. Shocked and dismayed by the human suffering he and other examiners found in a series of inspections of all Ohio mental institutions, Rhodes prefaced his unprecedented message to the legislature: "All things set forth are not fantasy . . , they are ' not imaginary . . ; nor are they exaggerated in any manner. . . They are cold, hard facts. . ." The report to the legislature echoed a blistering indictment returned by a Cuyahoga County grand jury several years before. The jurors condemned state hospitals where the mentally ill are incarcerated and forgotten rather than treated and cured as a hell for the sick." "a prison for the well "We are told these inhuman conditions have long existed " the report declared. "If this be true, we ... w v v- such foul treatment of these unfortunate ill, even as history will indict us if we fail to redress this ancient arid inexcusable wrong." Looking back on the furore which this indictment created, the jury foreman, the Rev. D. R. Sharpe, a Baptist minister, shakes his head sadly today and concedes that state hospital conditions are still es- senuaiiy me same. "People are put in to rot and disintegrate, not to be cured," he says. "There is no excuse for the philosophy that the purpose of the hospital is to keep these patients at a minimum of expense, rather than to treat them for their mentalailments." This writer has talked to scores of sincere, conscientious state hospital superintendents from coast to coast. All wish they could provide a program of intensive, total treatment aimed at pulling every |