Comments on: The Ancora and the Ecstasy http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/ A blog about mental health Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:55:48 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mitchell Gobrick http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/comment-page-1/#comment-3774 Mitchell Gobrick Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:07:42 +0000 http://trouble.pwblogs.com/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/#comment-3774 To me Ancora and Napa State are synonymous. California and New Jersey are no different as far as I am concerned... To me Ancora and Napa State are synonymous.

California and New Jersey are no different as far as I am concerned…

]]> By: Dano MacNamarrah http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/comment-page-1/#comment-3773 Dano MacNamarrah Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:10:31 +0000 http://trouble.pwblogs.com/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/#comment-3773 Honestly, they need to make a trailer about this monster of a hospital. Imagine, if you will, going to the movies and hearing the Movies Voice-Over Guy start with: "Ancora....If you're not sick when you go there....You will be....You have no choice....You can't escape....It's you against them....No end in sight....The only hope is death....Or...." Scenes of five-pointing, drooling patients, staff laughing it up, padded rooms, hero/heroine looking through caged window. The music of Kronus Quartet building. The last time I was on a lock-down ward, it was at Belmont. They were short of pillows and bedding. Only one nurse applied the ointment the ER had sent with me, to my three inch long third-degree burn. Oh, and I scored a scalpel's blade from another patient. I'd been there three months. So, it made a lot of sense that they released me three days after I'd had my wrists newly sewn up. On 600mg of Thorazine a day, with other meds. When I was on another three-month stay at Wright-5, one of my room mates told me how she "hooked up" with techs at Friends. I was in there the first three times I was hospitalized. The only thing that happened to me there was the loss of memories. They had me so doped up that I agreed to ECT, despite pleas from my boyfriend and several old friends. After more than twenty shocks, I still sliced myself. But I couldn't remember why I felt so shitty. I couldn't remember anything. Honestly, they need to make a trailer about this monster of a hospital.

Imagine, if you will, going to the movies and hearing the Movies Voice-Over Guy start with:

“Ancora….If you’re not sick when you go there….You will be….You have no choice….You can’t escape….It’s you against them….No end in sight….The only hope is death….Or….”

Scenes of five-pointing, drooling patients, staff laughing it up, padded rooms, hero/heroine looking through caged window. The music of Kronus Quartet building.

The last time I was on a lock-down ward, it was at Belmont. They were short of pillows and bedding. Only one nurse applied the ointment the ER had sent with me, to my three inch long third-degree burn. Oh, and I scored a scalpel’s blade from another patient.

I’d been there three months. So, it made a lot of sense that they released me three days after I’d had my wrists newly sewn up. On 600mg of Thorazine a day, with other meds.

When I was on another three-month stay at Wright-5, one of my room mates told me how she “hooked up” with techs at Friends. I was in there the first three times I was hospitalized. The only thing that happened to me there was the loss of memories.

They had me so doped up that I agreed to ECT, despite pleas from my boyfriend and several old friends. After more than twenty shocks, I still sliced myself. But I couldn’t remember why I felt so shitty. I couldn’t remember anything.

]]> By: Joe http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/comment-page-1/#comment-3772 Joe Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:13:47 +0000 http://trouble.pwblogs.com/2008/09/26/the-ancora-and-the-ecstasy/#comment-3772 Too bad New Jersey's legislators can't enact the very reform most needed at Ancora ..... Improving the quality of care and the quality of the caring. There would have been little need for reform if they had established a mechanism to reasonably insure compliance with the statute governing care at New Jersey's state psychiatric hospitals, N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.1(c): It is the policy of this State that persons in the public mental health system receive inpatient treatment and rehabilitation services in accordance with the highest professional standards and which will enable those hospitalized persons to return to their community as soon as it is clinically appropriate. Too bad New Jersey’s legislators can’t enact the very reform most needed at Ancora ….. Improving the quality of care and the quality of the caring. There would have been little need for reform if they had established a mechanism to reasonably insure compliance with the statute governing care at New Jersey’s state psychiatric hospitals, N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.1(c): It is the policy of this State that persons in the public mental health system receive inpatient treatment and rehabilitation services in accordance with the highest professional standards and which will enable those hospitalized persons to return to their community as soon as it is clinically appropriate.

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