My "asylum" experience continues: Part 2

Here's Part 1.

I've written only about the women's ward in the psychiatric institution called the Verdun Protestant Hospital but part of our group also worked on the men's ward. I have no real impression of what their work was like. In a way, there was such a feeling of intimacy with some of our patients on the women's ward, I wonder what could possibly duplicate that feeling on the men's ward? We were warned of — and experienced — dangerous situations with the women so I can only imagine what it must have been like working with the men.

I do remember that our whole group — and maybe some other groups — were taken on a chilling tour of the locked ward where the most dangerous patients were kept. These were people who had come through the criminal justice system, who had been charged with serious violent crime and who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity. This was maximum security; we were accompanied by a contingent of security staff and doors were unlocked and re-locked as we approached and passed through.

It was scary and sad and it was also a bit mesmerizing, in the way of a horror movie.

When I was looking up a few facts about the Verdun hospital, I came across a survey that had been done in 1937, detailing the state of the hospital, the staff, the patients, the food, the dress, the recreation, the care. It makes for interesting reading and although I'm sure many of the changes that it recommended had been implemented by the time we came along, there were some descriptions that sounded very familiar.

Without enumerating the details of all the wards, certain general remarks may be made. As has been stated before, there is very serious overcrowding in all of the wards devoted to public patients, and at least one ward now in use, namely "A" and "Observation", which is located in the basement, is not at all suitable for the care of patients.

In spite of that fact, 70 male patients, of various types, are housed there at present. The beds are crowded much more closely together than should be the case, with the result that the ventilation which even under ideal conditions of ward population would not be entirely satisfactory, is decidedly inadequate.

So far as could be observed, the housekeeping was reasonably good. The beds were clean and in spite of the woeful lack of bathing facilities, the patients appeared clean and the wards in general were free of odor. The natural lighting of a number of the wards is poor, and the arrangement is such that adequate supervision of the patients could not be obtained without a large addition to the personnel.

It's so polite and tactful, isn't it?

I think the main impression that comes across in the survey is cheerlessness and that's definitely one of the feelings I was always left with. My memory may not be terribly specific about the conditions in the hospital but my impression is that it was dank and dark and lacking in cheer and colour and hope.

At some point in our training, we were taken on a field trip to another "asylum" — the vast institution in the East End of Montreal called Saint-Jean de Dieu.

We went there on a bus and I remember being taken in by a back entrance to a sitting/waiting room until our guide appeared — a nun in full habit. Saint-Jean de Dieu, run by the Sisters of Charity, at that time housed over 5,000 mentally ill patients. I didn't know it then but I found out later that it was, in fact, an incorporated municipality and the Mother Superior was also the mayor. The hospital/town had its own police force, fire department, post office and its own polling stations during elections.

It also had shops and small businesses along its big main hallway — shoe repair, bakery, sewing and weaving — all operated by the patients. You couldn't help but think of that old observation that "the inmates have taken over the asylum" — but in a good way. I don't know how it looked to the patients and their families but to me it seemed bright and cheerful and hopeful. It was clean and well-lit.

That hospital was so big, it had a tramway inside to transport goods and patients from one place to another. Do you see the rails?

Most people remember — and she was memorable — the patient who believed she was Queen Victoria and dressed and behaved accordingly. She had a regal wave that Queen Elizabeth II would surely envy.

(This is the look she was going for.)

You can only conclude that the difference in the two hospitals was the presence of the nuns. There would have been a good population of nuns in Quebec at that time — this was still pre-Quiet Revolution — and nursing nuns were dedicated to service and to their patients. The survey I mentioned above about the Verdun centred in so many areas on lack of personnel.

I learned a lot from comparing these two settings.

We did eventually get back to the Montreal General and it was like leaping ahead a couple of centuries. I'll come back and tell you about that.

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Here's Part Three.