 Cuckoo's nest hospital to be demolished |
16 Jul 08 |
From: thewest.com.au
The psychiatric hospital that was used in the movie 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' is making way for a new complex. The hospital was experiencing problems for some time, but the plans became reality by a grim discovery back in 2004.
Although mean Nurse Ratched was pure fiction and never ruled the 125 years old Oregon State Hospital in Salem, it was not always a fun place to be for the patients. Overcrowding, crumbling floors and ceilings, outbreaks of scabies and stomach flu, sexual abuse of children by staff members, and patient-on-patient assaults, are only a few of the problems the hospital has experienced.
Politicians had been talking for years to demolish the complex, but it was only with the grim discovery in 2004 that the plans became serious. During a tour in 2004 a group of legislators discovered 3600 corroding copper canisters in a room that contained the ashes of mental patients who died between 1880 and the mid seventies. Because mental illness was considered so shameful, many patients were all but abandoned by their families in institutions so their remains were kept in "the room of lost souls" as politicans dubbed the chamber.
The movie based on a novel by Ken Kesey and with Jack Nicholson as main character Randle Patrick McMurphy was filmed in the complex in 1975. The location was chosen because the management gave the crew carte blanche and even allowed 89 real patients as extras ni the movie.
The construction will start in early 2009, and 2 years later the new complex should be ready.
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