Institutions- Have they really stopped in New Zealand?: One last thing to think about...

Thursday, 26 July 2012

One last thing to think about...

Anderson (2010) states “Any person or group of people become institutionalised to a greater or lesser degree by the community, organisation, culture or ethnic group of which they are a part of”.

Even though a person may no longer be living in an institution, does the culture and community cause the person to be institutionalised into the communities’ values, beliefs, and roles?

Or is it that the ex-members of a community are still institutionalised in the institutions of the community that they were a part of? Are people who have had long-term stays in institutions/hospitals so institutionalised in the old culture that they cannot adjust to the institutions of the new culture when out in the community?

These points I believe are vital for people to ponder and take into account in order to provide inclusive communities for people who have an illness or disability to live a ‘normal’ life. Stigma free!

Although the deinstitutionalisation led to a decrease in the amount of large institutions and an increase in the number of people with illness and disability residing in the community (Cummins & Baxter, 1993), Emerson (1985) raised the issue that maybe the change from an institution to community settings has only replaced one form of restrictive living with another.

What do you guys think?

References:

Anderson, P. (2010). Institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation what's the difference? Retrieved from http://www.psawa.com/Institutionalisation_Deinstitutionalisation_whats_the_difference.html

Cummins, R. A., & Baxter, C. (1993). A case for the inclusion of subjective quality of life data in service delivery evaluation. Proceedings from the Australasian Evaluation Society International Conference.

Emerson, E. B. (1985). Evaluation of the impact of deinstitutionalization on the lives of mentally retarded people. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 90(3), 277–288.

1 comment:

Peter20 August 2012 at 08:52
Hi Grace
Read you post with intrest. Institutionalised care is here to stay. Where a community does not have the skills or resources to look after their members (people with high support needs) institutional care is the only option.

Institutional care is much better now than it was 20 years ago and residents do have a reasonable quality of life. I have seen lots of examples where a person is relocated into a residence of 2 or 3 loose the contacts, relationships and community of the institution that they were a part of. They become isolated and withdrawn because of a lack of services outside of the organisation providing the care.

Anderson, P

ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Remembering Osler House

Screams echo down the hallway of my mind, as they did the cellsand hallways of that house of endless horrors, through the years.My body still remembers all the shame of what I witnessed,And the corrosive, all-pervasive acid-urine smell of fears.
I was thirteen years.
The sobbing, wailing background noise that ate away the night;The soul-shattering, too-sudden… cessation of the screams,These joined the tortured memories I buried in the abyss,To carve away my childhood, brutally, as they stole my dreams.
I was only thirteen.
The milling, naked bodies in the showers with no doors;The excrement and sanitary pads, my first time, on the floors.Betrayed by my own government, the state that had my care,In an adult asylum for the criminally insane; I’d pulled out all my hair.
I was only a child.
Hollow-eyed people, shock-treatment blank, helpless,And no longer knowing their names;The intellectually disabled and terrified childrenStill haunt in their drugged, bruised and bare-naked shame.
I was thirteen years old.

By Barbara Lane