Warehoused

There are two major state psychiatric facilities in Alabama. The first is Bryce, which originally served whites, and Searcy, which originally served blacks. Then when the hospitals were integrated, Bryce was assigned to north Alabama and Searcy to south Alabama.

Before Searcy was a hospital, it was a military prison dating back before the Civil War. Geronimo was once held there in transit and I can't help believing that it killed part of his soul. New buildings have been added and old buildings have new uses, but the tall, thick brick wall still remains, still stands the same purpose, to keep people in.

Searcy is located in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by timberland, much of it owned by the Department of Mental Health. There is a credit union and a convenience store down the road, but that's it. Drive up Hwy 42 past the chemical companies and stores with iron bars, turn onto the drive leading up to the front gate, a frame house with peeling paint standing sentry. An imposing brick building, the type only public institutions build, and then the gate, heavy iron with pointed rails.

The message is clear. We want you here, behind brick and bars, surrounded by miles of uninhabited land, far from our families, our neighbors, our lives. Here we do not have to see you, to hear you, to feel sorry for you. We want you away from society, not part of it.

It is an enormous facility with a nursing home and long term care units. At one time the admissions unit was located off site in a bedroom community of Mobile. The area provided a steady labor force and upon driving up, it looked almost like any standard school or nursing home, flag snapping in the breeze, light colored brick and plate glass. A chain link fence marked out a large exercise area shaded with oak trees, a highly respected housing development just over the back fence, and a field to the side planted according to season. The official name was the Poundstone Facility, but everyone called it Little Searcy.

Any new patient came to Little Searcy, almost ninety percent under court order. Evaluations were done and if long term or specialized care were needed, the patient was sent up 42 to Mount Vernon, past those chemical plants, to the woods, through those iron gates to Big Searcy, where they were expected to stay more than six months.

Then, in an effort to save money, the closure of the Poundstone facility was announced. The entire admissions unit, the entire Little Searcy, was sent up 42. I went in voluntarily right after the mood with a severe depression
and a suicide attempt. We were in the building that once housed mentally retarded patients with mental illnesses.

It was a three story building, L shaped and butted against the brick wall creating a triangular space with struggling grass and ruts of red clay. We were on the second floor, reached via a dark concrete stairwell with cold metal rails. There was an elevator, reserved for those in wheelchairs, and it wheezed up and down as if it were just too tired to go.

All the women were on the same unit, one long hall and a large dayroom, a nurses station split between it and the men's unit on the other side. Most rooms didn't have bathrooms, or even sinks. There were two toilets, two sinks, and three showers to serve the thirty or so women. Showers were only allowed at seven-thirty in the evening, where naked women shivered in line, arms clutched around their bodies, in and out without even turning off the water. This was not the place for a modest person. There were no shelves or benches, and the floors stayed wet and slick. Foot funguses were rampant.

In each room there was a bed and a wardrobe for each person. There were no desks or writing tables. Only some rooms had chairs. A room had four beds, except for one room that was occupied by a woman who was HIV positive and
requested her own.

There was a table in the dayroom, along with one pay phone, much in demand, a ping-pong table without net or equipment, a large television encased in wood and Plexiglas which stayed either on shows like Jerry Springer or television evangelists. The volume was high. The conversation was loud. The patients were often angry.

The dining room was downstairs, a box like room of concrete block and no windows. The food was prepared elsewhere and delivered in big stainless steel trays. In the mornings in October it was cold and I ate in my jacket. Usually it was warm by lunch. But the food may not be.

We ate with the men's unit and sometimes there were not enough chairs. Sometimes they ran out of forks, or spoons. So people stood with their trays waiting for someone to finish, or the found a flat spot somewhere and ate standing up. They ate Cheerios with forks and baked potatoes with spoons. It was important to get high enough in the line to avoid that. As a result, people grabbed whatever they could and hoarded it for whenever they would be without. Which was often.

There were not enough pillows, enough towels, enough washcloths, enough soap. The menus posted by the dietitian never matched what was actually served. Her evening snack of cake, fruit juice, milk, decaf coffee, became a pitcher of lukewarm coffee drained in minutes, hands grabbing for sugar or creamer. Vegetable soup was leftover corn, lima beans and green beans dumped together and watered down. We ate corn bread and turnips, turnips and corn bread, over and over again, but never enough.

I ate everything, methodically, section after section, and went back to my room hungry, waiting for the next meal. The only saving grace was the morning trip to the canteen for the ten lucky patients who made the list, where one could sit in the sunshine under sycamore trees and feast on a snack purchased inside.

It was one of the few ways someone could go off the unit, away from the institutional green walls, the noise, the one hall and one dayroom. The caveat was that you must purchase something from the canteen. If you were one of the many who had no family or no family willing to send money, you would not go.

That triangular patch of dirt and dry grass, with a big roaring generator looking thing enclosed in the center, was the smoking area and the place where one could get some air. Surrounded by brick, two concrete picnic tables and a wooden gazebo claimed by the smokers, dried up little men combed the ground for butts, which they would tear apart and roll their own cigarettes in a piece of paper. Five times a day for fifteen minutes. Twice at night, after the sun sunk into those infernal trees.

The doctors' offices were on our floor, and to enter or leave they had to pass right through our unit. If you wanted to talk to one, you were supposed to leave your name at the nurse's station, but the most effective way was to watch the doors, and, as he sped through, head down, keys in hand, head him off at the pass. Stand right in front of him. Call his name. Make it impossible for him to ignore you.

It occurred to me one day that our building looked in a way like a large warehouse. And it was. It was a warehouse of souls.

Addendum (Aug 28, 2001): Not long after this article was written, I sent an email to the Alabama Governor, Don Seigleman, on the living conditions in Searcy hospital. I expected to get a bland letter written by an intern with a rubber stamp signature. Instead, the email made it all the way to the Governor himself, who promptly put into motion an investigation regarding my concerns. Today I spoke with a patient advocate who outlined the changes made to improve the quality of life for the patients in Searcy hospital. Real change has taken place in less than a year from the time I experienced the regretful conditions. I am pleasantly surprised to find the state remarkably committed to taking these allegations seriously and finding real solutions in preventing them from occurring again.

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