Kennedy explains that this is because the hospital was built on Victorian ideas that fresh air and sunlight were vital for treating those suffering from mental illness. The corridors are wide and large windows let in lots of light. The patients in the medium- and lower-security wards can decorate their rooms as they wish. “As soon as we paint the walls they start to peel again,” the professor complains.Īs for the patients’ rooms, they are small, plain and don’t quite meet the minimum standards set by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture. In the stairwells patches of damp and peeling paint are visible. Inside he points to various features that could be used for suicide attempts, many of them impossible to hide because of the three-foot-thick granite walls. Prof Harry Kennedy: “Ireland has almost no intensive care wards at local level.” Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill “Anytime RTÉ come here, they want to record the sound of the key turning and the door closing. He doesn’t always succeed.Įvery time we reach a door he has to find the right key for the ancient metal Chubb lock. As he shows us around, Kennedy does his best to play down the more custodial features of the facility. The philosophy is “patients, not prisoners”. “It’s been condemned as not fit for purpose since the 1990s, when the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture came independently from abroad and inspected us,” says Kennedy.Īlthough many of the people here have committed violent acts, they are not here to be punished. The CMH is fascinating from a historical and architectural point of view but as a modern mental health facility it is completely unfit for purpose. In fact it was built on similar plans to the notorious Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, more commonly known as Bedlam. Victorian asylumįrom the outside – and to a certain extent on the inside too – it looks every bit the Victorian asylum. The hospital, located on 34 acres of well-groomed lawns (“I keep telling the gardeners they are artists,” says Kennedy), sits behind an 18-foot wall just outside Dundrum village in south Dublin. People would just scream and scream and they were tormented. “Anti-psychotic medication really only became available in the 1950s, so for years there was no medication. All the cells used to have double doors, he explains. Then he points to the metal frame of the door which has two sets of hinges. They would put the lamp in the opening to light up the cell from the outside and look in through the little window to check that people were still breathing and that they were still there.” At night the attendant went around with a lantern on a pole. “Internet access would be a issue here,” Kennedy says quietly. The others tell him it’s a kind of radio show but on the internet. “What’s a podcast?” asks a third patient who has joined the group. I ask if he ever listens to the paper’s podcasts. "My case was all over The Irish Times." Kennedy introduces another man who tells us he is a fan of the newspaper's business section. Hearing we're from The Irish Times, he laughs. But we immediately bump into one man who is eager to chat. Kennedy wants us to move quickly because we don’t have permission to interview the patients. Most of the people in the ward have committed violent crimes – some have killed people – but the very fact they are in ward three, a medium security part of the hospital, means they have reached a stable stage in their treatment. He must have detected some worry on our faces as he immediately adds that there are no safety fears. Prof Harry Kennedy, our guide through the Central Mental Hospital and its clinical director, tells us to move quickly through the ward.
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