"Sun 02-26-2006 By: scott
collection cases from 1999 probably wouldn't have any educational value. also, hospitals, companies, and governmental agencies are required to retain records for certain periods, varying depending on the type of document. documents are destroyed to protect the company, hospital, agency, not the patient. the "destroy date" is the date that the files must be kept for, not the date they must be destroyed." In revisiting this wonderful site after years have passed, and reading comments since my last visit, I look at the picture again and see what Scott and other's wrote, these probably are just billing records and such that don't reveal any medical details. Any place that essentially quit majorly serving the mental health community before 2000 didn't either have to deal with HIIPA or didn't have the ability to deal with decades of forgotten records if anything medical related was left. I still maintain the records would be interesting to read for a historical account as so many people's lives were destroyed and forgotten undeservedly.

said in Bob Ross tone... Now we'll paint a happy little rainbow on this radiator.

is that a beer can sitting on the way top right door?

this photo is just begging for a ghost to show up on the steps

perhaps it was a homeless schizo who needed to remember which room s/he uses as the bathroom? ;)

makes you wonder why they decided to leave the records. did they actually truthfully forget? did they think the building would never be broken into? perhaps they just didn't care (about the records, much less the actual patients?)

Imagine searching for your family's past (geneology) and being able to find a relative's records here. Imagine how many relatives were lost in these asylums never to be known. I would find them interesting to read too. Amazing how with the Hippa act that it seems so hard to get private records yet it's amazing who actually can get access to your records so easily yet.

that's what I was thinking too... "complete with puke bucket"

Shoulda snarfed them boxes up and sold em on Ebay ;)

fantastic photo!

What's with the cross on the lower right side?

That is a horrid pink and certainly wouldn't calm me down, and one of the other first things I noticed was that face on the wall too.

I'm always amazed & in awe of these old fireplaces in institutions.

Perhaps Tim isn't meaning his words to be literal but literary. Imagine being a person who was locked in that room, how horrible it must have been.

Hippa didn't go into effect until recent years, they had no Hippa act back then, and I'm sure these records are forgotten by current personnel working there.

I've seen some websites that showed pics of records up close but they were kind enough to black out the patient's name. I also read a couple blogs of those with severe psychiatric illnesses and sometimes they are interested and many times they are redundant as if they're brains are stuck.