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Planning the phasedown of mental hospitals

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Abstract

With impending fiscal shortages limiting the growth of new community mental health services and the ability of mental hospitals to perform contemporary tasks remaining dubious, increased attention is being directed throughout the country to the role of state hospitals. Citizens and professionals in Massachusetts concluded that the needs of individuals now treated in mental hospitals are better met via community-based services as they become available than by services now provided in state hospitals. Consequently, public mental hospitals should be phased down over a 5-year period of time and their funds redeployed to community services. Among the factors affecting the success of this program shift are continuity of care for discharged patients, community acceptance of the mentally ill, and redeployment of personnel to community facilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. United Community Planning Corporation, 14 Somerset Street, 02108, Boston, Massachusetts

    Herbert C. Schulberg Ph.D. (Associate Executive Vice President, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology)

  2. Harvard Medical School, USA

    Herbert C. Schulberg Ph.D. (Associate Executive Vice President, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology)

  3. Newton-Wellesley-Weston Community Mental Health Center, USA

    Alvin Becker M.D. (Coordinator of Adult Services, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry)

  4. Boston University Medical School, USA

    Alvin Becker M.D. (Coordinator of Adult Services, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry)

  5. Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, USA

    Mark McGrath M.S.W. (Special Executive to the Commissioner)

Authors
  1. Herbert C. Schulberg Ph.D.
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  2. Alvin Becker M.D.
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  3. Mark McGrath M.S.W.
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Schulberg, H.C., Becker, A. & McGrath, M. Planning the phasedown of mental hospitals. Community Ment Health J 12, 3–12 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01435732

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01435732

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