Become An M-POWER Friend

Consumer/Survivors Protest To Clean Up Tewksbury State Hospital 
By: Jo Bower

Editor's Note: On Valentines Day of this year the Cross Disability Peer Group at Tewksbury State Hospital, the Northeast Independent Living Center, and other allies from around the state, organized a protest to insure privacy and sanitary conditions with respect to the shower policies at Tewksbury State Hospital. The campaign is ongoing. In this article NILP worker Jo Bower describes the campaign and some of the conditions at the hospital which led to the rally.

Tewksbury, MA—On Valentines Day, nearly 100 Tewksbury State Hospital patients and their supporters rallied outside the hospital to protest inhumane treatment, intolerable filth and numerous violations of their human rights. 

“Have a heart and treat us like human beings,” was their rallying cry in response to months of inaction from hospital administrators, despite numerous attempts by a cross-disability group of current and former patients to improve deplorable conditions at the hospital. Patients are routinely teased, bullied and abused by staff; hallways reek of urine; bathrooms stink and have excrement on the floors and toilets, even in sinks; patients who dare to express anger to staff are sent to their rooms for a “time-out;” staff punish patients by taking away their wheelchairs or their personal televisions; patients with physical disabilities are bathed on plastic trays called “trolleys;” which frequently smell or urine or feces because staff “don’t have time to clean them.”

 One patient named Nelson Plourde said, “He (Ray Sanzone, the hospital administrator) sat right in front of me and told me they aren’t always going to wash the shower trolleys each time they are used because it would take too much time!” Mr. Plourde, who works in the community, has also requested more than one shower a week but again, Mr. Sanzone has said that staff simply don’t have the time to give patients more than one shower in a week. 

At the rally, a former patient, Kim Poland, told of how she lay in her hospital bed one night and listened to her roommate being raped by a staff person, who was never disciplined, merely transferred to another unit. “They covered the whole thing up,” she stated. Months later, while still a patient, Kim ran into this staff person and he made sexual advances towards her. 

Near the end of the rally two patients delivered to Mr. Sanzone an empty box of chocolates symbolizing empty promises and a bottle of bleach to clean the shower trolleys. After the rally, Mr. Sanzone refused the news media’s request to tour the trolleys. After the rally, Mr. Sanzone refused the news media’s request to tour the bathrooms, rather inviting them back in the evening for an inspection. At that time, the bathrooms were found to be, of course, “relatively clean.”

Rally participants included some patients from units run by the department of Public Health for people with physical disabilities and other patients from units run by the Department of Mental Health for people with psychiatric disabilities. When these peers met one another 13 months ago, they were amazed to find they were living under similarly deplorable conditions, such as lack of personal privacy, arbitrary (and ever-changing) unit rules and inhumane punishments created and enforced exclusively by the staff, and filthy bathing and shower facilities.

After compiling a detailed and specific list of personal care and human rights issues they felt needed to be addressed, these consumers met three times with members of the hospital administration. Most of their requests were either dismissed as non-issues or flatly refused, including Mr. Plourde’s desire for a daily shower on a clean shower trolley.

 It was then that the group decided to “go public” with its concerns and invite the media to bring public attention to the conditions at the hospital.

Their rally received significant media attention, with cameras and reporters from Fox TV and Media One covering the event. It also generated front page stories in The Eagle Tribune and The Lowell Sun, as well as interviews on WBUR Public Radio. Several media outlets are planning follow-up coverage as the group takes its demands to the Commissioners of Mental and Public Health.

The day after the rally, a staff person working at the hospital came forward anonymously on Fox TV to describe the deplorable conditions and staff abuse of patients which she herself has witnessed. Her statement powerfully validated the concerns expressed by the patients and their allies, who have vowed to continue their fight to improve living conditions at the hospital.