From all around the globe
The patients they welcomed had histories of cruelty and neglect.
One patient was a girl who had been shackled in a cell since childhood. Another patient arrived in a chicken crate.
The campus was divided into a men’s side and a women’s side, and included separate ends for violent and non-violent patients.
Located in Laurel, Maryland, this abandoned institution was once a live-in facility for children and adults with an intellectual disability.
Before being turned into one of the deadliest health-care institutions in American history, the campus was designed to be a beacon of progress for the care of children.
For the first few decades, Forest Haven was a place where patients learned job skills in a communal farm colony environment meant to strengthen their sense of community.
However, funding began to dry up in the 1960s and several programs had to be discontinued.
Doctors, nurses, and other staff reportedly began to take their frustrations out on the patients, many of whom became the victims of physical and sexual abuse.
That was if the patients received any attention at all. For the most part, patients were neglected to the point of death.
In 1976, families of patients filed a lawsuit against Forest Haven, alleging abuse, neglect, and medical incompetence.
Many of the patients were relocated following the suit, but the institution continued to operate. In the late 1980s, the Justice Department investigated a series of deaths from aspiration pneumonia, a condition often caused by improper feeding procedures.
Many who died were secretly buried in an unmarked field nearby. A judge ordered its closure in 1991, but much of the equipment—including desks, beds, toys, and medical records—remain.
In August 1942, during World War II, the Luftwaffe dropped 230-kg (500 lbs) bombs on the hospital's west wing.
As a consequence of the bombings, 38 patients died, many of whom were buried in the nearby Colchester Crematorium.
A change in management during the 1960s introduced art and music therapy programs.
The new programs and management, combined with a growing understanding of mental health care, greatly improved patients' quality of life.
As was common before the 1960s, the institution used treatments like electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies.
Doctors at the facility were generally free to experiment on the patients.
This mental hospital in Colchester, Essex, opened in 1913 with the capacity to house about 2,000 patients.
Though some of its patients were in desperate need of hospitalization, others included, for example, women who had been raped, which justified institutionalization at the time.
The hospital eventually closed in the early 1990s, but a portion stayed open for a little longer to house elderly stroke patients.
In recent years, considerable parts of the facility have been demolished to make way for roads and housing developments, but parts still remain decaying on their own.
One notorious case contends that there were two patients who hanged another patient using bed sheets. When he didn't die, they used a metal bed frame to finish him off.
Today, it's largely closed to the general public, but paranormal tours and investigations still take place.
There are cases, both reported and unreported, of patients killing one another.
Because of the overcrowding and understaffing, violence among patients was a common occurrence.
The hospital closed its doors in 1994.
Another infamous case is of a nurse who went missing only to be found dead two months later at the bottom of an unused staircase.
It is the second largest hand-cut sandstone building in the world, only behind the Moscow Kremlin.
Sitting on more than 600 acres, the facility is comprised of different buildings, including a museum, a gift shop, and a cemetery.
But by the 1950s, the hospital housed 2,400 patients, almost 10 times its capacity.
The state of mental health care around the world is far from perfect, but it has come a long way. Just a few decades ago, people could be institutionalized for nearly any reason and become the subject of cruel and experimental methods. Upon a growing understanding of mental health followed by health care reforms, asylums around the world shuttered their doors. While many have been repurposed, many others were abandoned, and they remain as decaying reminders of those who once walked their halls.
Click through the gallery to enter the eerie world of abandoned mental institutions.
Exploring abandoned asylums around the world
Eerie, decaying, yet beautiful
LIFESTYLE Abandoned
The state of mental health care around the world is far from perfect, but it has come a long way. Just a few decades ago, people could be institutionalized for nearly any reason and become the subject of cruel and experimental methods. Upon a growing understanding of mental health followed by health care reforms, asylums around the world shuttered their doors. While many have been repurposed, many others were abandoned, and they remain as decaying reminders of those who once walked their halls.
Click through the gallery to enter the eerie world of abandoned mental institutions.