In 1955 a journalist for the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s Advocate reported that when touring the Morisset Psychiatric Hospital he observed a blind patient weaving a basket. At the Hospital in this time, and until 1965, items such as these baskets were made by patients in the Male Occupational Therapy Department. But there are also […]
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In 1936, Morisset Psychiatric Hospital opened a new ward for the Criminally Insane, commonly referred to as the ‘Crim’ by staff. Patients of this maximum-security ward were men with mental illnesses which contributed to their offence or prevented their integration into the regular prison environment. By the 1970s, the most common diagnosis of patients was […]
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The recorded histories of institutions such as Morisset Hospital are rarely given by its patients. Through the 1900s, the hospital, once known as an insane asylum or mental hospital, cared for people with a variety of needs: disability, alcohol addiction, mental illness, those experiencing the late-stage impacts of sexually-transmitted diseases, and criminals considered unsuitable for prison. […]
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