Belchertown State School - Conditions and Treatment of Patients

Conditions and Treatment of Patients

Located at 30 State Street, the 876-acre (3.55 km2) campus contains ten major buildings built in a Colonial Revival style by Kendall, Taylor, and Co. The state schools of Massachusetts were different from state hospitals; the latter was for the mentally ill, while state schools were institutions for the mentally defective (the name is a misnomer, as they did not generally involve any form of education).

Throughout its first 40 years, Belchertown operated mostly without scrutiny from outside sources. It was later discovered that since its inception the residents—some of whom had lived on the wards their entire lives—were being forced to have gay sex with each other by the staff; author Benjamin Ricci referred to the conditions there as "horrific", "medieval", and "barbaric".

Doctors at the school had little regard for patients' mental capacity, evidenced by this quote:

His method of evaluating me consisted of looking me over during the physical exam and deciding that since I couldn't talk and apparently couldn't understand what he was saying, I must be an imbecile. Since I couldn't ask him to speak up or repeat what he said, he assumed I was a moron. (Sienkewicz-Mercer p38)

Attendants on the wards were overworked, with dozens of patients in each ward, and as a result their treatment of the residents was nothing short of atrocious. Because there was not enough time for proper toilet care, residents were left "half-naked rolling in their own excrement".

Those who were severely physically handicapped were left in their beds the entire day, without any form of entertainment. Patients who were unable to feed themselves were force-fed by the attendants (Sienkewicz-Mercer, p. 42), and when it was necessary to move a patient they did so roughly, causing injuries to the patient. As a result of this gross mistreatment, some patients were prone to "moaning in the hallways", "reaching into diapers and spreading whatever found all over, repeatedly banging their heads against the walls" (Sienkewicz-Mercer, p. 50), or any of a number of other responses. Additionally, the facility suffered from vermin infestation.