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Although mean Nurse Ratched was pure fiction, the Oregon State Hospital has struggled with some very real troubles over the years, including overcrowding, crumbling floors and ceilings, outbreaks of scabies and stomach flu, sexual abuse of children by staff members, and patient-on-patient assaults.

Politicians had been talking for years about the need to replace the hospital, but didn’t get serious about it until a group of legislators made a grim discovery during a 2004 tour: the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters in a storage room. The lawmakers were stunned.

“Nobody said anything to anybody,” said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, who dubbed the chamber “the room of lost souls.”

The remains belonged to patients who died at the hospital from the late 1880s to the mid-1970s, when mental illness was considered so shameful that many patients were all but abandoned by their families in institutions.

“It just created such an emotional momentum” for replacing the hospital, said Courtney, who led the effort to build a new institution.

Although “Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed here, neither the movie nor the 1962 Ken Kesey novel on which it was based makes any specific references to Oregon State Hospital. Kesey drew on his experiences working at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., and set his satirical story at an unnamed institution in Oregon.

Actor Michael Douglas, co-producer of the movie, scouted various West Coast locations and chose the Oregon institution because then-Superintendent Dean Brooks agreed to give the moviemakers unfettered access.

“They wanted to make it on location with real patients,” said Brooks, now 91, who was given a speaking part as a weak-willed doctor who acquiesces to Nurse Ratched. Brooks said 89 patients were hired as extras.

Douglas, Jack Nicholson (who played the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy) and Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched) were regulars at the hospital during shooting.

Milos Forman, the director, lived for six weeks at the institution and had his actors study real patients, according to a 1975 account in Rolling Stone magazine. Nicholson became depressed because of what he saw, including electroshock being administered to a patient.

State leaders decided in 2006 to build a new, $300 million, 620-bed hospital at the site of the oldest and most dilapidated part of the complex, the J Building, a yellow-painted brick structure with brown trim, a towering cupola, and iron gratings on the windows.

The front section of the building, including the cupola, will be preserved as a museum on the history of mental health care.

Other parts of the building were abandoned decades ago and are now a ghostly sight. The paint has been scoured off the bricks by the weather and the passage of time, and the wings are cluttered with old equipment, fallen plaster and piles of pigeon droppings. The third floor is so rotted it is not safe to walk on. The building is also contaminated with lead paint and asbestos.

Construction of the new hospital is set to begin next spring and should be completed by the fall of 2011.

It is not just a bricks-and-mortar exercise Oregon is undertaking to improve care for the mentally ill. State leaders have pledged beefed-up staffing levels, new treatment programs and better living conditions.

Among the 590 current patients is 44-year-old Mike Wyffels, who has been at the hospital for five years with bipolar disorder. Wyffels said he welcomes the state’s plan to give most patients their own rooms in the new hospital. In some cases, he said, as many as seven patients share a room.

“When you’ve got a bunch of people in one tiny room, it’s chaos. I can’t even study in my room because I don’t have the privacy to do it,” he said in a conference room while other patients milled around outside in the hall, talking or listening to music.

In May, Portland resident Debbie Osborne came to the hospital to collect the canister containing the remains of her great aunt Clara Johnson, who died of pneumonia 60 years ago. Osborne plans to give the ashes a proper burial this summer.

“It’s really sad that we still have a stigma” about mental illness, Osborne said. “But it’s changing; it’s a lot better.”

Courtney wants the museum to include a display of ashes not yet claimed by relatives. “You’ve got to remember your past to make the future better,” he said.

Interesting story...Kesey's Life...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey#Final_years

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Comments

My sister, then Donna Murray who is 10 years my elder, went to school with Ken Kesey and remembers him. Years later my cousin, Dale Evoy from British Columbia, worked as an intern at the famed mental institution and gave me a bit of a tour. Included was a walk of the underground passageways between buildings. I tell you it was real spooky! There were all sorts of old brick lined rooms adjoining the tunnel. Dark. Dank. Single bare light bulbs. He said we were looking at old laundry rooms and God knows what else. I could just imagine the terrible conditions for the patients and the barbaric treatments they received. I then thought of "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" and Ken Kesey.

Tom Murray '63
Hmmm….I thought that the movie I was in (can’t remember the name of it) was based on a Ken Kesey novel, but I don’t recognize anything on the list. Perhaps you remember it? It was filmed at Lane Community College, and was about a campus riot. Can’t even remember who starred in it, except that I picked out a hat for him to wear in one scene! I was taking a “Survey of Visual Arts” class through LCC, and we spent a day with each important person on the film – director, cameraman, producer, all the background people, etc. At breaks we sat around with them and all the Hollywood folks could talk about was buying land in Lane County!!!!

On second thought... I finally remembered that movie, probably because I was busy sorting paperwork and forgot all about it…..hehehe. It was “Getting Straight” but I can't remember who starred in it. (It was Elliott Gould and Candice Bergen...)

Veronica Carnegie '63

Thanks for sharing. I feel like I missed out on most of the hippie generation, by then I had 2 little girls that I had a responsibility to. I read the book, because of his connection to Springfield. I loved the book, and the movie even more.

Roberta Miller '63

Interesting side notes shared by Dorothy Naylor Dellinger from Deanna Stewart:

I grew up in Salem and spent many days riding my bike through the park like grounds of this hospital. There was a gazebo in the middle of a mote with huge Koi. I lived kitty corner from the "new" addition on the grounds until 1959. There was a small grocery store next to us and many were the times my little brother and I would find candy on our front porch. We always assumed it was from the patients that were allowed off grounds.

Deanna Stewart - '61

"Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

In a message dated 7/22/2008 7:09:49 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, dorothy.naylor@gmail.com shares this about Ken Kesey from Carol King:

HE ALSO HAD MY DAD, RUDY KING, FOR A TEACHER. MY FATHER WAS ALSO ACQUAINTED WITH HIS PARENTS WHO OWNED A DAIRY PRODUCTS BUSINESS IN THE TOWN OF SPRINGFIELD. NANCY MAY HAVE INFO ON THAT BUSINESS. IT WAS RATHER LARGE, OR SEEMED TO BE TO ME. I WILL ASK DAD ABOUT HIM. Carol King - '61

Interesting note from Carol...The business was called Springfield Creamery...and members of the Kesey family still operate it. Check out the following interesting web sites.

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/products/producers/springfieldcreamery.html

http://www.skypilotclub.com/creamery.html

Other items of interest in Springfield and Eugene

The Statesman (Salem's Newspaper)