Tours provided of abandoned psych ward for 100 years of mental health treatment

Oct. 03--As the sun began to set Friday, the line forming outside of an abandoned psychiatric ward at Griffin Memorial Hospital began to grow.

Waivers were signed and upon entry into the first room, a black and white film flickered on the wall. Warnings were given from tour guides that if anyone became too uncomfortable they could exit at any time.

The tone was set for a potentially scary situation. While some may have been anticipating just that, whispering questions to each other if the historic building was haunted, the experience was an educational one.

Griffin Memorial Hospital provided tours of Hope Hall, a historical building from the 1930s, for the first and only time to commemorate their centennial as a state-operated facility. Tours were given from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday. Tours will also be given today at the facility, located at 900 E. Main St., from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The tour provided a look at what the process of someone being admitted into the hospital was like back then. Each individual in the tour was given a small, paper cup like those used when giving patients medications, with small papers that had symptoms on them.

Assessment and diagnosis was discussed, and later in the tour how some of those disorders were treated.

The surgical beds and a bed with restraints attached were some of the scarier looking items in the antique building, but one person on the tour who worked at the hospital in the mid-50s remembered a water therapy treatment they used that would make patients scream.

The horror seemed to be in memory of the old treatments, rather than the building itself.

Robert Allison worked at Griffin Memorial when he was 17-years old. It was January, in an unheated building and he was asked to help with an 18-year-old patient.

"The third floor was empty. I took an 18-year-old patient up there in January, along with a bag of crushed ice. We put the crushed ice in a tub and filled it with water," Allison said.

Blankets were laid out on a wooden table and the last thing put down were sheets that had been soaked in the cold, icy water.

"We made him strip down and put him on the table then wrapped him in the cold, wet sheets," he said. "You had to cover everything because as soon as you did that to him, his body went into overdrive to heat him up and if you had one part of his body touching another, it would scald him and burn him."

Allison remembered the patient screaming.

"But then he just heated up like crazy, and that was the shock. Then we dressed him and took him back to the ward," he said. "I don't even know what happened to him afterwards."

Allison also described electric shock therapy as it being exactly like it was portrayed in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

"If you've seen that movie, you've seen what they did here years ago," he said.

Lori Jordan, executive director of Griffin Memorial Hospital and the tour guide for the group, confirmed they did use water therapy, electric compulsive therapy (ECT), as well as lobotomies.

"Lobotomies were an innovative therapy in the mid-50s, as barbaric as it sounds and as it was, it was deemed very innovative. However, once some research and education was implemented it was deemed to be barbaric," she said.

ETC was also a very effective therapy, she said. In it's "hey-day", it was again, more barbaric in nature than what they would look to today for treating patients.

"However, it's made a comeback and it is more humanized and it is very effective for some of our more serious mentally ill individuals," she said.

Other forms of therapy included things like recreational therapy and group therapy. Some renderings, such as drawings and paintings, from consumers were on display in Hope Hall, as well as photos of individuals participating in recreational activities.

Allison said he remembered taking a group to University of Oklahoma home football games while he worked there as part of the recreational therapy.

"OU would call CSH (Central State Hospital) and offer to let us bring our patients into (a) pie-shaped seating area. We would take a state bed, truck around to several wards and invite patients to go to the game" he said.

I often worked Saturdays then and would crawl up in the back of the truck with them and accompany them throughout the game."

Allison said the crowds would usually go crazy, screaming and hollering, after OU would win games 55-0 and the patients would sit calmly taking the game in a civilized, intelligent manner.

"On the way home I would point out the contrast in them and the crowd and ask them, in effect, 'Now who's crazy?'" he said.

Other treatments used to address psychotic symptoms in consumers were the drugs Lithium, introduced in the 40s, and Thorazine, introduced in the 50s. Jordan said the drugs had a sedative effect, but had some very negative effects.

"It did help to contain some of the more aggressive behaviors, harmful behaviors, however it did have massive and irreversible side effects," she said. "It permanently damaged some of our consumers."

With more innovative psychotherapy treatments, Jordan said they saw the reduction of census at the hospital.

"Then with next-gen medications we saw less side effects and we just keep getting better and better. We have newer drugs that help address symptomatology and help keep individuals in the community," she said.

Empty rooms in Hope Hall showcased not only the barbaric treatments used in days past, but also antique medical equipment, rare photos and historical documents that were decades old, providing an overall picture of how far treating mental illnesses has come.

Director of Communications Jeff Dismukes said they've opened their doors in order to provide an opportunity for questions from the public, as well as celebrate the transformation of treatment over the past 100 years at Griffin Memorial.

"We've opened our doors because everyone thinks this place is kind of scary and spooky. Anything is scary and spooky until you get into it and you experience it," Jordan said. "So by opening our doors, we open minds and hopefully reduce the stigma of mental health."

The future of the hospital may be changing with a bond issue, Norman Forward, the city will be proposing to voters, as well. Some renderings were available to check out at the end of the tour.

"These are some renderings that suggest potential use to redevelop this land and repurpose it and decrease the footprint that Griffin has on this entire plot of land, but continue our mission as well," Jordan said.

Jessica Bruha

366-3540

jbruha@normantranscript.com

Follow me @JbruhaTNT

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