Hospital
In 1876 the prison was refurbished as Florida State Hospital for the Insane, Florida's first mental institution. The hospital has been the focus of investigations over the years for allegations of mistreatment of patients.
The hospital was involved in a famous United States Supreme Court decision in 1975, O'Connor v. Donaldson, when a patient at the hospital, Kenneth Donaldson, sued the hospital and staff for confining him for fifteen years against his will. The decision, as interpreted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), means that it is unconstitutional to commit for treatment persons who are not imminently a danger to themselves or others and who are capable to a minimal degree of surviving on their own. This interpretation has hampered efforts to implement changes in commitment laws throughout the United States, as most states insist the person meet the "imminent danger" standard, accepting the ACLU's interpretation of the O'Connor v. Donaldson case. The ruling gave momentum to the deinstitutionalization movement in the United States, resulting in the shutting down of many psychiatric hospitals as patients were released to the streets, and has been blamed for causing widespread homelessness in the United States among other problems.
The hospital was featured in a 1989 movie, Chattahoochee, starring Gary Oldman and Dennis Hopper.
Read more about this topic: Florida State Hospital
Famous quotes containing the word hospital:
“The church is a sort of hospital for men’s souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailor’s Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sun his hand uncloses like a statue,
Irrevocably: thereby such light is freed
That all the dingy hospital of snow
Dies back to ditches.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)