The Hospital of the Seven Teeth

[pie]

"These were only the most recently publicized bad things that happened here. Coming across the machinery of electroshock, electrosurgery, and devices I could not identify, along with piles of sad patient records, I wonder about the many untold stories."

From Boston Globe, March 1991:
In the most recent highly publicized case of patient abuse, investigators spent about seven months and interviewed more than 100 people to find out who was involved in a pattern of sexual abuse of female patients at ___ State Hospital. In November, department officials announced the firing of four hospital workers in connection with the sexual abuse of five female patients. The department also disciplined 31 other staff members for failing to report their knowledge or suspicions about sexual abuse at the facility.

http://www.darkpassage.com/hopscotch/dioramas/teeth/3PT.htm

My question is: how are things like this allowed to happen,
in our own country and right under our noses?
If your co-workers were raping and torturing the
patients you were assigned to heal, what would you do?
If your psychiatrist buddy started bubbling about the
joy of invasive dental surgery on mental patients,
what would you do?
Somewhere, many many many someones fail to defend a defenseless human caught in the throes of dire and continual man made agony -
how does this happen, unabated?

[depakid]

1. People with mental illness were still being sterilized

not so many years ago in Oregon.

Institutional practices/abuses aside, many pdocs will tell you that working in psych wards- even in "respectable" hospitals can be discouraging. One can only imagine what underfunded facilities designed for the most seriously disturbed must be like.

It seems to me that it would almost have to attract those who are prone to be abusive (or who are cynical & desensitized to the situation).