Both you, and the historical commentary reply are correct.
Mental hospitals _were_ very bad, and the problem continues to be very bad.
However the solution was never going to be END the old social program. We see the results in any major urban area today, it's what everyone in this thread is talking about.
It's far too easy in politics to rally around a common 'goal' of 'stop doing X / being X' (E.G. BRexit) without the 'replacement' action selected. If 'and do nothing' is really what's supported that should be fine as an affirmative assertion. 'Stop doing X and do nothing instead'. Or (as an example) 'End sanitariums and make mental health a public drunkenness level crime while funding the police and jail / hospital systems for treatment'.
The problem is lack of agreement and follow through on a plan leading to the default failure mode of the universe; everything fails in uncontrolled ways.
There was a old This American Life episode which was re-aired recently that covered a court case that possibly changed psychiatric health care as much if not more. The patient in this case got better treatment but sounds very unwell even with medication, at least according to now estranged children.
Yes, but surely giving mother nature the task instead is not the proper reform.
Psychiatric medication have come a long way since the 60s, so running wards should be alot simpler than back then with all those insane displine procedures.
The idea behind closing down the mental institutions in the 70s/80s (pursuant to a legal decision about the rights of the mentally ill) was that community-based mental health support should be offered instead. But of course, it never was. For yers mentally ill people were shoved into the prison system; that approach has been abandoned but they've mostly been left to rot on the street instead.
It’s a situation like congressmen who vote for a budget, the take a “principled” stand to block the debt limit. Or taking the Bill Clinton’s “fundamentally changing welfare forever”, by pushing recipients to Social Security Disabilty, and off of the federal and state government’s balance sheet.
In the case of mental hospitals, the closures were supposed to be replaced with community based care, but of course Medicaid and Medicare funding was not set to meet demand.
Part of the problem is that it works like prison, where some of what makes it awful are crazy assholes ruining things for everyone else dialed up to 11.
the doctors and knowledge wasn't bad, (a select few) people and biases were bad. That plus lack of due process to keep them in check lead to yet another form of discimination. The treatment of some high profile cases made a mental ward look worse than a prison.
I don't have a true answer to fixing all of this, but it should definitely be said that it WAS in fact bad. And that the fixtures are not technical in nature.
Mental hospitals may have been bad, very bad, but what if the alternative is worse? I walked into a Starbucks in downtown San Jose a few weeks ago and there was someone in there asking for water. Their clothes were soiled rags. They had sores on their ankles. Their face was smeared with dirt. Is that kind of an existence better than spending time in a mental hospital? Is it really the most humane option to let people slowly die on the street? I know what my answer is.
>Is it really the most humane option to let people slowly die on the street?
Legally, yes. Unfortunately. If nothing else, it is something done in their own power, and no governmental institutions can be accused of breaking the 7th amendment over it.
There are current and forming solutions to this, but the US has always had a fickle relationship with actually voting in welfare options when push comes to shove. Crabs in a bucket; They want the homeless out of sight, out of mind, but don't want to pay taxes that goes towards "free handouts". That mentality needs to change if the US is ever going to make headway on this.
