Pennhurst Asylum

The Pennhurst Asylum, located outside of Philadelphia, was once an institution for the mentally and physically disabled. It was shut down in 1987 after years of overcrowding and patient abuse. It has found a new life as a haunted house, and this upsets many of those people who lived here before and had to undergo years of abuse.

In the 60's, a local reporter named Bill Baldini ran a five episode series exposing the Pennhurst State School and Hospital. It showed the neglect and abuse that was going on behind closed doors in the institution, many who viewed this found it hard to stomach. The series showed images of people's hands and feet strapped to adult-sized cribs, patients who were rocking back and forth, pacing, and even twitching. Many of these patients were severely disabled, whether it be mentally or physically, but others were lucid and coherent, but withdrawn into themselves because of the environment they were exposed to in the institution.

These five-minute news segments were called "Suffer the Little Children."

When a patient was asked by an interviewer what he would like most in the world, if he could have anything he wanted, he simply said, "To get out of Pennhurst."

Pennhurst's doors opened in 1908, and due to the pressure to accept not only mentally and physically handicapped people, they were also pressured into opening its doors to immigrants, criminals, and orphans who could not be housed elsewhere. It quickly became overcrowded within only a few years after opening its doors. And in 1913, the Commission for the Care of the Feeble-minded was appointed, they boldly stated that those who suffered with disabilities were "unfit for citizenship" and "posed a menace to the peace." Patients admitted to Pennhurst were grouped into several different categories, they could be listed as an "imbecile" or "insane," while the physically handicapped would be declared either "epileptic" or "healthy."

Like many of the other facilities during this era, Pennhurst was functioning independently from the rest of society, it was operated by its own power plant, policed its own grounds, and even produced its own food. It could entirely operate without any interaction with the outside community, and any needs they could not fulfill on its campus was fulfilled by a railway line that was connected to it.

In the 60s, it housed 2,791 people, and most of these people were children. This amount of people was about 900 more than the administration thought the buildings could comfortably accommodate. They were a state school, however, so they had to take what they were given, in reality. Only about 200 of the patients were in any some kind of program, whether it be art, education, or recreation, to help improve their conditions. Many of these patients were high-functioning enough to improve if they were provided with the correct care. Even the administrators who were interviewed in the program recognized that they were continuing to fall short of their ideal treatment, but the facility was crumbling at this point, they had a budget shortfall of 4 million dollars, and they only had 9 medical doctors, and 11 teachers (none of which had special education training), so their hands were tied at this point.

One of the physicians that was featured in the documentary described how he dealt with one particularly vicious bully who had brutalized one of his other patients. He said that he asked one of his fellow colleagues which injection would cause the most discomfort to a person without doing any permanent harm, once the information was given, he proceeded to inject the patient with that injection.

And from that point on, it became obvious that the hospital would end up closing its doors, but it took two decades of legal actions, federal judgements made and overturned, and growing financial crises for the facility to be closed down. By the 80s, due to overcrowding, inadequate staffing, and the decades of abuse and neglect accusations catching up with the institution, Pennhurst closed it's doors.

And even despite the outcome, many of the institution's former patients and staff members say that Pennhurst served many of the patients very well. Some of those high-functioning patients received treatment and therapy that they needed to prepare themselves to go out and live in the outside world. But, there were also patients who were so mentally handicapped they would injury themselves at any provocation, so they probably needed top be restrained for their own personal protection.

Once the doors were closed, it suffered fewer invasions than some of the other Pennsylvania hospital, and this was due to the presence of a National Guard post and Veteran's Hospital that was part of the property during this time.

It is now sitting in the hands of a private owner who opened its doors as a haunted house, this is a concern for many of those who view this as deeply disrespectful towards those who had to suffer through the institution's brutality.