Honoring the Dead
Thanks to Joe for alerting me to the saga of a Nebraska cemetery on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital.
The bodies were buried in the institution’s cemetery between 1889 and 1957. Many of the people were committed to the institution without their consent for any number of health conditions or because of poverty.
Nebraska officials have said the names are part of the patients’ medical records and thus can’t be released under state statutes protecting patient privacy. The historical society argues that the patients should not be forgotten and there is no evidence that they wanted their bodies buried in unmarked graves.
I understand the need for patient confidentiality, but perhaps we need to rethink medical ethics in this case. The battle is being positioned, however, as a journalistic issue:
The groups that filed the brief are The Associated Press, the Nebraska Press Association, the Nebraska Broadcasters Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Media groups want Neb. cemetery records released
Hey Romenesko, are you listening? Enlighten us, please.
liz | 11:49 AM | Uncategorized
A few months ago, my local newspaper had an article or two about a similar type of cemetery on the grounds of the local state psychiatric hospital here, near Reno, Nevada. I think it was a very similar situation, with all the unmarked graves of people who had died while in the institution, after being warehoused there for many years, and a local civic group trying to do something to make the cemetery seem not quite so disrespectful. I suspect that there are probably cemeteries like this beside psychiatric institutions in most states of the country. Maybe this is the beginning of some kind of national movement to finally try and give some kind of dignity to the dead buried in these places. A good thing, but long overdue.
Forgotten in life; anonymous in death. Without knowing who they were is Nebraska in some way denying that they ever existed?
While she was not buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds of a state hospital my great-great aunt Alma spent the majority of her adult life in institutions. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how best to honor her life. For me, I feel I must tell her story, write about her, and that is why I’m working on a memoir about my search for more info about her and about others in my family who struggled with psychiatric illness.
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