{"id":266,"date":"2016-07-23T22:57:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-23T22:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/?p=266"},"modified":"2019-04-08T23:06:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T23:06:17","slug":"10-days-in-the-madhouse-by-nellie-bly-and-how-things-are-mostly-different-currently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/23\/10-days-in-the-madhouse-by-nellie-bly-and-how-things-are-mostly-different-currently\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Days In The Madhouse by Nellie Bly and How Things Are Mostly Different Currently"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I watched 10 Days in the Mad House.\nIt’s based on a book written by Nellie Bly from the 1890’s. She was\nthe first female investigative reporter and had written the book\nAround The World in 80 Days. As you can tell from the title, she was\nadmitted to an insane asylum for 10 days. It was called Blackwell at\nthe time but it was a part of the Bellevue hospital group. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was able to get a copy the book on\naudiobook years ago and listened to it for a couple of months. I was\nexcited about having a movie based on the experience. I’m going to\nstick to the general themes and not about the details of the movie.\nThere are many things that have changed since the early days of\nasylums. But many things have changed. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, doctors, staff and\norganizations know more about disorders and are careful to treat\npatients as people. Back then, there was little emotional support for\nstaff and little was known about how to treat patients. They were\nalmost in the dark about numerous aspects of treatment. There are\nstill staff who only work for the patient and don’t care much to\ninteract with the patients. Patient care is almost zero for these\nstaff members, whether it’s now or back then. Bly was witness to\nbeatings of some of the patients who were in the care of Blackwell\nIsland. She also experienced rotten food and bathing in the same cold\nwater treatment as every other patient bathed in. Patients also\nbrushed each other hair and physically bathed other patients. Some\naspects of patient care have changed. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bly was one of the reasons that high\nsecurity mental hospitals have doors on a mechanism that opens them\nall at once. While not all hospitals work this day today, she pointed\nout the deadly consequences of having individually locked doors. This\nis especially important since Blackwell is on an island and it has to\nbe generally self sustaining. If the staff were to wait for the fire\ndepartment to be able to brave the heat to open the doors to each\nroom individually, many of the patients would perish. In the mental\nhospital where I worked, each door locked individually but we were\nnot a high security place so the doors were left open and unlocked\nalmost all the time. The only time staff locked doors was to lock out\nthe depressed patients so that they would not lay in bed all day. The\nonly problem that I can see is that we had heavy doors at the end of\nsome of the hallways and in case of emergency, if the staff couldn’t\nget to the door to get some of the patients out, they might perish.\nWhile it is rare that patients have access to anything that could\ncause a fire, wires and staff stupidity with the staff microwave\ncould lead to one. Most hospitals switched to safer door practices\nbased on Bly’s experiences. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I understand that Bly was in the\nhospital to observe, the movie portrays her as someone deep into the\nproblems of the other patients. Had she been hospitalized now, staff\nwould remind her repeatedly to MYOB. There are plenty of patients who\nbecome close friends and who feel great support from each other. For\na percentage of people, this is beneficial. For others, it becomes a\nnightmare. I’ve seen this most in the child and adolescent units. One\nteen or child comes to rely on the other and now the other believes\nthat they are the ONLY one who can calm their friend down. This takes\naway from their treatment and can cause great distress if staff has\nto subdue or manage with their friend. From my perspective, this is a\ndifficult behavior to reduce or maintain since it involves talking\nabout boundaries and convincing someone that they literally can’t\nstop their friend from themselves. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bly has a different reasons for\nbeing involved and there is a bit of appreciation that she stepped\nin. The patient care was not respectful to patients since patients\nare still people. She was able to get better treatment and get some\nof the patients discharged at a time when it was difficult to get\npatients discharged. There were many blocks to get the patients’\nfamily to getting information and getting the patients out of the\nhospital. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, in low security mental\nhospitals, patients families can come visit and call them on the\npatient phones. A patient can be kept in the hospital by doctor’s\norders (in CT) on a three, five or 15 days paper. When those orders\nare up, a judge comes to the hospital to determine whether the\npatient needs to be there. If a patient voluntarily checks themselves\ninto the hospital, the patient can leave AMA (against medical\nadvice). Each hospital and state has a different requirements,\nthough, so this may not be applicable to every American mental\nhospital. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the problems that I witnessed\nwas the threat of \u201cbooty juice\u201d or being restrained. I was in a\nhospital that participated in restraints. We had certain laws to\nabide by to make sure that the patient was safe. The reason that\nrestraints were threatened was because there was little power the\nfront line staff had when patients were rude, disrespectful, agitated\nand increasing threats or acts of violence. \u201cBooty juice\u201d is the\ninformal way of talking about holding a patient down to get a shot of\nmedication in their buttock. This was only used after talking and\noffering a pill (ordered by the doctor, called a PRN or pro re nata\n(jokingly referred to as a \u201cpill right now\u201d), a pill such as\nthorozine or benedryl to calm a patient down). The rules that the\nhospital followed was that a staff member sat with the patient to see\nhow they are doing. Blood pressure and checking in by the nurse staff\nwas required after a couple of hours. The doctors and nurses decided\nhow long a patient would be in restraints- the shortest being 30\nminutes and the longest being 3 hours. The patient was able to be out\nof the restraints for the bathroom and walking around. If they were\nstill agitated, the restraints were continued. In the two years I\nworked there, there was only one occasion where a patient stayed in\nthe restraints for more than 12 hours (not continuously as I stated,\nthe person had to be let out in order to walk about). Restraints are\nknown to be issues within current mental hospital settings. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other current issue in mental\nhospitals is admitting appropriate patients. Many programs are meant\nto treat a wide variety of issues that people experience. The one\nwhere I worked was geared toward people who needed a rather short\nterm (days to weeks) placement to make sure that they are safe for a\nvariety of reasons including medication change, detox or suicidal\nthoughts. This is not the place for someone who is chronically\nmentally ill or extremely violent. State laws ban the use of \u201cdo\nnot admit lists.\u201d These are lists of people who have tried to abuse\nthe system and waste time that could be better used on someone who\nwill appreciate the help. While this can be beneficial for some\npatients, other patients like to exploit the system. There was a\nrumor about a couple attempting to get admitted so that they could\nvacation together on insurance’s dime. Doesn’t that just rub you the\nwrong way a little? Before I left the hospital, there was a known\nviolent patient admitted and it was not clear how the error occurred.\nThis was scary for the staff and we didn’t receive hazard pay, like\nthe people who work in the hospitals with extremely disturbed and\nviolent patients. Some patients should not be allowed to be admitted\nto the hospital for various reasons. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the treatment of patients have\nimproved since the time that Nellie Bly wrote about the treatment of\npatients, there are still issues to be addressed. Patients used to be\nabused and kept indefinitely, without a hearing or visits from\nfamily. Now, the patients are threatened with hands on interventions\nwhen they aren’t following or in control of themselves. Some places\nadmit patients who are not appropriate for the setting. There might\nalways be issues with asylums but staff and policy can continue to\nhave better care of the patients. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I watched 10 Days in the Mad House. It’s based on a book written by Nellie Bly from the 1890’s. She was the first female investigative reporter and had written the book Around The World in 80 Days. As you can tell from the title, she was admitted to an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovescounseling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}