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Built in 1874 to house 225 patients, the Missouri State Lunatic Asylum #2 neared 3,000 patients in the 1930's and 1940's.  Overflowing, understaffed, and underfunded the situation became desperate.   

The Institution

  Missouti State Hospital #2 in  St. Joseph

"We are recording the most difficult period ever experienced in the history of the institution.  We have been very seriously handicapped because of the war.  Inflexible budgets formulated for peace-time operation have been found inadequate, and additional hardships of rationing, priorities, and other necessary war-time measures have multiplied our difficulties.  A marked increase in the cost of all commodities and periods during which these could not be obtained have also contributed to the distresses we have experienced. 
 
Our medical and nursing staffs were completely demoralized by the army’s increasing demands for medical and nursing service.  This deprived us of all our psychiatrists, taking all of our competent and progressive young persons. 
 
One by one the usual and necessary adjuncts to institutional treatment were reluctantly relinquished because of our inability to secure personnel for their continued operation.  Our out-patient clinic, occupational therapy, and hyperthermia were dropped one by one, although the treatment of potential recoverable cases was carried on by electro shock and metrazol, and malarial treatments were continued. 
 
Our attendant personnel progressively diminished and a critical shortage of ward administration developed.  We were unable to choose among applicants considered competent and adaptable, but were obliged to take what we could secure.  These applicants were without experience, and some with major physical handicaps.  The turnover of help was excessive.  Concessions of wage increase and time off duty have been found necessary to retain a nucleus of experienced personnel, without which the institution could not operate.  The inducements offered by the Government and industry have drained our community of eligible young women, and the shortage of female help has been extremely acute. Institutional advancement was impossible, and the struggle has been to prevent too great or too rapid retrogression of institutional efficiency and remain within our meager budget.  Imposing buildings and elaborate equipment do not constitute a hospital.  At the present time our staff is only half what is required to adequately meet the needs of patients." 

 

F.A. Carmichael, M.D.

Superintendent Report 1939-1944

Lobotomies were developed and became popular as economic resources and personnel were stretched thin during the 1930s Depression and World War II.
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