Getting Out of Mental Hospitals

Abstract

As we said in Chapter 1, everyone now gets out of mental hospitals — though as will be shown later when we look at the Special Hospitals, this general statement needs slight modification. Even so the old idea of one group — probably the acute patient — being able to leave, and the other — probably the chronic patient — remaining on the back wards has passed. Acute and chronic alike find themselves out of the hospital together. Their fate unhappily is not always the same, nor always one about which we should be proud — although occasionally one forgets there was little to be proud about in the old hospital-based system either, especially for the long-stay chronic patients.