Date: Fri 15-Dec-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-FHH-Fairfield-Hills

Full Text:

The Closing Of Fairfield Hills

The health care industry is one of the few enterprises we can think of whose

ultimate goal is to put itself out of business. (Criminal justice is another.)

A perfect record of success would eliminate all disease, and consequently, the

need for health care. In this context, the closing this week of the Fairfield

Hills State Mental Hospital can be seen not as the collapse of an institution,

but as confirmation of the extraordinary success of the medications and

treatments that are enabling mentally ill people to live and work in

independent community settings.

When Fairfield Hills opened its doors in 1933, there were 500 patients in its

wards. A quarter of a century later in 1959, the state hospital's population

topped out at just under 3,000. This year, the 485 employees at the hospital

were serving fewer than 100 patients. Its closing was inevitable, despite the

best efforts of state employee unions to keep it operating.

Although there was some concern, more than 60 years ago, that a mental health

institution at Fairfield Hills would stigmatize Newtown, that was not the

case. Many people joined the effort to bring the treatment of the mentally ill

out of the dark ages, when people were put away and forgotten, into the realm

of possibility, where hope is never abandoned. Those involved in this effort

helped give Newtown a reputation of being a place where people count for

something, where problems are shared and overcome.

We hope these same values carry over to whatever enterprise settles next on

the lovely landscape of Fairfield Hills. It is a place that lies close to the

heart of Newtown in more ways than one.