New Crusade

A relative of mine had to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital this week. It was very traumatic for all of us and I went to visit my relative in the hospital. I ended up parking a couple of blocks away from the hospital and started walking towards it. It's on a university campus and I walked down the streets admiring the buildings. The nueropsychiatric research institute is a crowning achitectural achievement. It has wide columns and an expansive courtyard. The designers put in lots of greenery and managed the amazing feat of creating an impressive institutional structure which still emanates warmth and humanity. I was hoping the hospital was in this building. It was not. It was set another half a block down through a courtyard path. The much smaller brown building looked like it had been built about 30 years ago and hadn't aged well.

I found my way through the labyrinthian halls to the Adult Pyschiatric Unit. The door was locked but there was a phone there. I picked up the phone and could see through the door's window a nurse sitting behind a desk enclosed in glass. She picked up the phone, I told her I was here to see my relative and she buzzed me in. Visiting hours had just begun. I walked half way down the hall and a woman was sitting in a doorway with a clipboard at the entrance to the visitor's lounge/rec lounge. She pointed me to a corner where my relative was sitting down and coloring. We hugged (she hugged me with a sort of fierce desperation) and as I sat down on the couch beside her, looked around. I was depressed just being there! The forest green sofas and chairs were haggard and falling apart. The art on the walls looked like it had been purchased at Wal-Mart in 1988. This was not a good place to come and get mentally well.

As I left the hospital I decided that something has to be done. This is not a place to rehabilitate the mind and soul (unless their goal is to make it so awful that people will force themselves sane to leave). I think that Extreme Home Makeover or Oprah or someone needs to be contacted about this travesty. I need my relative to take digital pictures of the space and then we'll start the crusade to create a soothing place that brings sanity and peace to all who enter.