Ep. 39: The History of Ararat Mental Hospital, Part 4 (1990-2011)

In this episode, we discuss what led to Ararat Mental Hospital finally closing in 1993, as well as what has become of the hospital in the years following its closure.

All sources listed at the end of the episode transcript. Special thanks to David Waldron for allowing me to use his book Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum. 

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Transcript

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals! I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Gallup, and today we are going to wrap up the history of Aradale by looking at what led to the hospital closing after 126 years and what is happening with the building now.

I had mentioned last week that I had hoped to finish the history of Aradale and go into the history of J Ward, but there was just too much to say. Even though I’m only covering about four years of time, it’s four dense years of history. In fact, the difficulty in telling today’s story is that there are layers of different events happening at or around the same time. So I’ll do my best to situate you to the timing of all these events.

Trigger warnings for this episode include mention of patient neglect, sexual abuse, and other forms of abuse. I won’t go into too much detail on any of these.

My sources for this episode will be listed at the end of the episode transcript.

So come on in and get comfortable as we go behind the walls of Ararat Mental Hospital…

We left off last week with the story of Garry David, the dangerous inmate who had the Community Protection Act of 1990 passed just to keep him incarcerated indefinitely, as well as his death by suicide in 1993.

In this episode, I want to rewind a bit to the late 1980s. Not just in Australia but in other countries around the world, attention had been brought to the sometimes terrible conditions that patients at psychiatric hospitals were living in. Most patients by this point had been moved from large state-run facilities to smaller group homes in the community. But there was still a drive to investigate the large hospitals and see how they could be improved.

Enter Brian Burdekin. In 1986, he had been selected as Australia’s first Human Rights Commissioner. He brought awareness to an issue that had been either overlooked or ignored completely: the problem of homeless young people. Burdekin then wrote a report in 1989 called Our Homeless Children that exposed the many issues that these young people faced. Journalist Greg Thom points out, “The report shocked the nation and ushered in a raft of reforms designed to alleviate the plight of homeless youth and ensure they were treated with dignity and respect.” 

The report brought so much attention to the issue of unhoused young people that the following year, in June 1990, Brian Burdekin was tasked with yet another investigation: looking into the treatment conditions of folks with mental illness, both in large state institutions and in community facilities. He would later say, “My initial reason for conducting this inquiry came from evidence presented to the homeless children’s inquiry, which suggested that in many areas, the human rights of individuals affected by mental illness were being ignored or seriously violated. Further research also indicated: (1) widespread ignorance about the nature and prevalence of mental illness in the community; (2) widespread discrimination; (3) widespread misconceptions about the number of people with a mental illness who are dangerous; and (4) a widespread belief that few people affected by mental illness ever recover” (Burdekin). What’s sad about this is that, despite how far we’ve come in regard to understanding and treating mental illness, there is still a stigma surrounding it, even in 2023. I would argue there is still a widespread misconception about mentally ill folks being dangerous – and I say that as someone who works with people who have been dangerous because of their mental illness. I recognize that there are far fewer people locked up because they’ve committed a crime related to their psychiatric symptoms than people who are in the community, living with and managing their mental illness just fine. But I digress.

Burdekin would go on to say that “I opened hearings of this inquiry posing the fundamental question – do Australians with mental illness get equal priority in the allocation of resources, treatment, research, and protection of their human rights?” (Burdekin) And, spoiler alert, the answer would be no, these folks didn’t get equal priority in the areas he investigated.

Public hearings began in April 1991, Burdekin said, and over the next 15 months hearings were convened in a wide range of cities and regional centers across the country. A total of 456 witnesses appeared before the inquiry during formal hearings; the inquiry also examined over 820 written submissions from individuals affected by mental illnesses, care providers, community organizations, clinicians, other mental health professionals, and government authorities (Burdekin).

By 1993, once the inquiry had wrapped up, Burdekin’s study had revealed the following – and note that some of these may seem somewhat obvious in retrospect, but we’re still struggling with them today:

1.     People affected my mental illness are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our community. They suffer from widespread systemic discrimination and are consistently denied the rights and services to which they are entitled.

2.     Individuals with special needs – children and adolescents, the elderly, the homeless, women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, those with dual or multiple disabilities, people in rural and isolated areas, and prisoners – bear the burden of double disadvantage and seriously inadequate specialist services.

3.     The level of ignorance and discrimination still associated with mental illness and psychiatric disability in the 1990s in unacceptable and must be addressed.

4.     In general, the savings resulting from deinstitutionalization have not been redirected to mental health services in the community. These remain seriously underfunded, as do the non-government services which struggle to support the mentally ill and their [care providers]. While the movement toward mainstreaming mental health services may alleviate the stigma associated with psychiatric care, there is a serious risk it will not receive the resources it so desperately needs.

5.     Poor inter-sectoral links, the ambivalent stance of the private sector, and a reluctance on the part of government agencies to cooperate in the delivery of services to people with mental illness have contributed significantly to the human rights violations they experience. (“Report of the National Inquiry”)

These were the findings Burdekin found when examining multiple facilities across Australia. While this study was ongoing, Ararat Mental Hospital had its own investigation, conducted from May to November 1991.

Now I want to preface what turns out to be a scathing review of the hospital and its conditions by saying that within most (hopefully all, but let’s say most) large institutions there are staff who genuinely care – who do their best to establish good rapport with their patients and who uphold ethical standards. That said, there are systemic failures that happen, which do quite a bit of harm, and that’s what I believe this investigation in 1991 uncovered. So I am certainly not saying that all the staff at Aradale or any other facility were all bad or all despised their patients – we know that’s not the case – but these large-scale findings were disturbing and merited the level of attention they garnered.

According to the article, written by Robyn Dixon in the November 20, 1991, edition of The Age newspaper, there were 245 residents living at Aradale: 188 with developmental disabilities living in the Training Center and 57 with psychiatric illnesses living on the Mental Hospital side. And though it’s long, I think the entire report is worth reading because it discusses the many issues that were uncovered at Aradale throughout this investigation: 

The newspaper headline in large letters reads, “Aradale patient scandal exposed.” 

At least 100 staff at Aradale psychiatric centre face disciplinary action following an investigation that found that the institution had “barely changed since last century.”

A quarter of the residents at Aradale were underfed, there was systematic pilfering of food, stolen Aradale goods were dumped at the local tip, a pooling system operated for underwear, and there was a “gross misuse” of patients’ pension funds, the investigation found.

The average stay at Aradale is more than 23 years, 54 times the acceptable World Health Organization standard of 150 days. The investigation found that staff care appeared to be directed at maintaining patient dependency.

A taskforce, set up in May to conduct the investigation, also examined claims of sexual abuse and violence at the psychiatric hospital and residential institution.

The taskforce’s report said a culture of complacency at Aradale meant that “clients’ rights were infringed and their dignity abused.” Among staff, “unprofessional attitudes or behavior were accepted without question.”

The report said that:

-       Nearly $110,000 of clients’ funds was missing, and staff had spent their money without their permission on basic food and cleaning agents, even though food and board had been paid.

-       There was no permanent psychologist, occupational therapist, or social worker at Aradale, although there were six gardeners and 28 maintenance staff, including an upholsterer. [Side note: Obviously this is the point that sticks out to me the most as a psychologist who works at a psych hospital. Today we have at least one psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, and recreation therapist on each unit, and it hurts my heart that patients didn’t have most of those in the whole hospital. One of my main responsibilities in my job is to do risk assessment for violence, suicide, and self-harm. Who was evaluating these folks? And were they actually specifically trained to do so? End of rant – back to the report…]

-       Intellectually disabled people were locked up for 11 hours overnight because of staff rosters.

-       Dental care was seriously deficient, and many clients were without false teeth.

-       Up to half of some food items that were bough never reached patients: 3600 chickens and about 60,000 pieces of fruit had gone missing, believed stolen, since 1989.

-       Reports of physical clashes and other incidents were filed without action, and staff did not report some cases of alleged sexual abuse.

The report said it cost $70,000 a year to keep someone at Aradale but “a casual observer at Aradale would have trouble understanding where the money went.”

It rejected suggestions of a lack of resouces, and strongly attacked mismanagement, inefficiencies, and work practices at Aradale.

The report said: “There is almost no consistent or meaningful activity provided at Aradale. By and large, most clients wander aimlessly around the grounds or sometimes downtown.” [I’m sorry – what? The aimlessly wander downtown? Did anyone at the hospital know they were out there? When I read that, I felt so nervous for these folks. Generally, when someone with a psychotic disorder or a developmental disability goes AWOL, they are more at risk of harm than people in the community are at risk of being harmed by them. They are incredibly vulnerable and, in certain cases of intellectual disability, it can be similar to a child wandering off unsupervised. Sooo…I hate that.]

The Minister for Health, Mrs. Lyster, said the report was devastating but claimed the Labor Government had exposed the problems.

“I must say that it surprises and shocks me that we are just finding out about the true nature of the care in these institutions,” she said.

Police were investigating some matters, and some charges were likely. Mrs. Lyster said formal disciplinary action, ranging from reprimands to sacking, would be taken against at least 100 staff.

“We’re talking about 100, 120 years of institutional care shut away from the community,” she said. “The notion of the institution on the hill has a very unhealthy aspect to it and here we see some of the unhealthiest parts of it.”

But the shadow health minister, Mrs. Tehan, called for Mrs. Lyster’s sacking, saying it was “the most scandalous report I’ve seen.”

She [presumably Mrs. Tehan] said the report showed gross abuse of human rights and proved that the state’s psychiatric institutions operated for staff convenience.

“The Victorian public must ask how the Government has sat by and let this litany of abuse and neglect prevail at Aradale while funding it directly to the tune of $18 million per annum,” she said. (Dixon)

That article provides an overview of the issues found at the hospital. There were other articles about sexual abuse of patients by staff and by other patients that, frankly, I don’t think I need to read in order to convey how disturbing it is. It’s still an issue that goes on today. Staff-patient sexual relationships are rare, but they do happen, unfortunately. Patient-patient sexual relationships are more common, and there is ongoing debate about the ethics and legality of dependent adults engaging in consensual sexual activities. That’s a much longer discussion for another day. Suffice it to say that the activities exposed at Aradale were not consensual in nature and added to the list of abuses that were occurring there (Dixon). 

As a side note – and maybe a bit of a distraction from talk of patient abuse – one of the things I love about having a newspapers.com subscription is looking at all the old advertisements and funny headlines that are featured alongside the article I’m reviewing. This is not an ad, by the way, but newspapers.com, if you wanna sponsor me, hit me up! Anyway, right next to this really somber report on Aradale is this tiny little headline that says, “Butterflies are bad.” And underneath is the teaser for the longer article: “Butterflies may be free but they’re also dirty, according to one British entomologist, who has claimed that the males drink urine, partake in deviant sex, and engage in other grubby behavior.” So I guess that’s your fun fact/palate cleanser following that sad report. “Butterflies are bad.” And no, I did not read the article.

I warned you at the beginning of this episode that there were layers of things happening at once. The Burdekin Report was happening while the investigation into Aradale was going on. Meanwhile, for the Victorian state government in the early 1990s, the focus was on cutting costs in order to preserve the resources left for folks with mental illness. Deinstitutionalization had been slowly occurring for decades, as patients transitioned into the community, but in Victoria, as in the United States years earlier, the election of a conservative politician hastened the end of large psychiatric facilities.

Ask someone in the U.S. about deinstitutionalization, and they might reference former president Ronald Reagan for it, even though deinstitutionalization actually began under former president John F. Kennedy. 

Fair warning that I’m going to oversimplify a very complex historical and political issue here, but essentially history reads like this: about a month before the presidential election when he lost to Ronald Reagan, former president Jimmy Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 into law. This was designed to offer grants for community mental health facilities so patients leaving larger hospitals would have resources available to them. When Reagan became president, he repealed most of the act immediately. This left patients leaving psychiatric facilities with very few resources. Many of them no longer had a place to live and, having been hospitalized for most of their lives, they weren’t able to fend for themselves. This essentially forced many of them to live on the streets; others ended up in jail or prison.

Ask someone in Victoria about deinstitutionalization, and they might reference former premier Jeff Kennett. In 1992, “the election of a reformist conservative state government led by Jeff Kennett hastened the deinstitutionalization process” in Victoria (Wiesel and Bigby). According to Ilan Wiesel and Christine Bigby, the Kennett Government was hoping for two main changes: (1) achieving community inclusion for people with disabilities and (2) decreasing costs for large psychiatric facilities.

In the background was a new federal initiative called the Better Cities Program, or BCP, which ended up running from 1991-1996. Lyndall Bryant points out that the Better Cities Program “included the renewal of inner city precincts, public transport improvements, and the redevelopment of land under-utilised or no longer required by State and Federal Governments” (7). Basically, the BCP funded several important long-term projects, including institutional reform, with the hope of improving access to community and health services and reducing dependence on expensive and outmoded types of institutional services” (Bryant 7). In other words, the BCP was also helping move along the process of deinstitutionalization.

The combination of the Kennett Government on the state level and the Better Cities Program on the federal level pushed hospitals to begin closing. In 1992, Caloola, also known as the former Sunbury Asylum, and Mayday Hills (formerly Beechworth) were closed. And in 1993, Aradale closed, after 126 years (Wiesel and Bigby).

We’ll come back to Aradale in a bit, but it’s also worth noting that after these first few institutions closed, the argument that “closing the hospitals would save money” was no longer valid. The remaining facilities showed improved management practices and overall efficiency – so much so that when Janefield and Kingsbury hospitals were closed in 1996, it actually required additional funding from the Better Cities Program to close them. Many staff and patient advocates fought for those two particular facilities to stay open, not only for fiscal reasons but for patient preferences, too (Wiesel and Bigby). The Pleasant Creek Hospital in Stawell remained open until 1999. 

There are still mixed opinions today about deinstitutionalization – in the U.S. for sure and, I imagine, also in Australia. On the one hand, we know that there were far too many people who were hospitalized without valid reason. We know that many patients did not receive adequate care. But I’m not so convinced that shuffling patients from one type of facility to another – a process called transinstitutionalization – was really the answer, either. After all, former hospital patients weren’t poof cured when they discharged – most of them had to go somewhere else.

Wiesel and Bigby point out five of the primary critiques of deinstitutionalization:

-       First, that patients were typically rehoused in small group homes that often accommodated up to five residents. The argument was that these group homes basically turned into “mini-institutions,” with similar structures, routines, and cultures as the larger facilities. In that sense, there wasn’t much of a change of structure – just a change of environment.

-       Second, that the goal of moving patients out of large hospitals to reconnect them to the community wasn’t really working. After all, even in small group homes, patients were mostly only connected to their family, fellow residents, and staff.

-       Third, that simply moving patients from one type of institution to another, such as a shelter, prison, or nursing home would still have strict regimentation and material deprivation that would impede patients’ quality of life.

-       Fourth, that some hospitals weren’t fully closed just…restructured. In some cases, hospitals turned into cluster housing models that replaced other types of group homes.

-       And fifth, that not all institutions were actually closed. In the U.S., U.K., Australia, and other countries, there are still institutions that care for folks with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities – and I work for one. Some people would like to see all those closed down, too, although I don’t know that I do. Only in Sweden and Norway have all psychiatric institutions been closed. I’d be curious to look more into this in the future. (Wiesel and Bigby)

Obviously, the closing of Aradale and other hospitals in Victoria was a long and complicated process. But what has happened with Aradale since 1993, you ask?

After the main hospital in Ararat closed in 1993, only the Ararat Forensic Psychiatry Centre in the old J Ward remained. In April 1994, the Ararat Mental Hospital and Training Centre were officially decommissioned. A few years later, the Ararat Forensic Psychiatry Centre closed and the remaining patients were transferred to the Rosanna Forensic Centre at Mont Park in Melbourne (“Ararat”).

But life wasn’t entirely over at Aradale, as David Waldron, Sharn Waldron, and Nathaniel Buchanan point out in their book Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum. I want to read a longish section from their book because it is so eloquently written and nicely captures the ambiguity of the time period following the hospital’s closure: 

The 15 years following the closure of the asylum were not kind to Aradale. When the last patient was rehoused, the government was left with a glaring issue: What is to be done with a massive, purpose-built rural lunatic asylum?

This is a question which has challenged governments around the world, particularly those in the United Kingdom and United States, where large numbers of enormous edifices with accommodation for sometimes thousands of patients now sit without purpose. A small percentage located in more urban regions have been redeveloped, but many were subjected to the slow fate of demolition by neglect, their only purpose to provide graffiti-covered environments for urban explorers on YouTube.

It seems significant that what was created as a state-of-the-art construct with beautiful surrounding gardens was left to rot and decay, firstly in its ethos and practice now and in its physical reality. The beautifully designed surrounding gardens, intended to offer the patients a safe and therapeutic environment, now express physically the neglect and decay of the functioning asylum. It seems significant that the intention, having been subverted and degraded throughout its history, was the only reality that could be conceived. That having failed, the space could not be reimagined; the very structure was so integrated with the function that when the function failed, so did the entire edifice. The buildings and gardens have not been pulled down or transformed into something other; they have been left to decay and deteriorate into ruins. (Waldron et al 133-134)

Waldron et al would go on to say that deterioration wasn’t the end of the old hospital. The city of Ararat lies in the middle of wine country that has produced Shiraz for over 150 years (Waldron et al 135). So several years after the hospital’s closure, in 2001, the Victorian Government provided several million dollars to Melbourne Polytechnic to establish a campus on the site of the hospital. The Wikipedia page says that “30 hectares of vineyard and 10 hectares of olive grove were planted in 2002, and an olive processing facility and winery were later built on the site. The first planting at the Ararat campus was of 28 hectares of vines, which produced the first vintage in 2005. Since commencing training and research at Aradale in 2002, Melbourne Polytechnic also established a 250 tonne winery, a four hectare lavender farm, and extensive training facilities” (“Aradale Mental Hospital”).

But perhaps what the old hospital is best known for now are the ghost tours. Waldron et al note that around 2008, Nathaniel Buchanan, one of the co-authors of the book, had been invited to a photoshoot held at Aradale over a weekend. Having been a tour guide at a number of European historical sites, such as battlefield, catacombs, concentration camps, even Dracula’s Castle, Buchanan was drawn to the history of the hospital – all the way back to the Gold Rush years. And so, “when he first saw the towering edifice of Aradale with its decaying exterior, labyrinthine corridors, dingy cells, and seedy morgue, one thought resounded in his mind: ‘Best Ghost Tour Ever.’ He later remarked that it was ‘As if the ghosts in Aradale saw him at the same time and concluded he was the right man for the job’” (Waldron et al 136-137). And so, in 2011, the doors of Aradale were first opened for customers eager to explore the asylum in what was to become a highly successful ghost tour business (Waldron et al 135).

It was important for Buchanan and others that the tour was historically accurate and respectful of the people who lived and worked at the hospital. After all, Aradale had been the largest employer in the area for years, and many former staff still lived in the area. They dug deep into the hospital’s background and history, including reading books written by former psychiatrists and former investigators.

Of course, as Waldron et al note, “Ghost tours are different to a traditional historical or heritage tour because they require ghosts as part of the experience. Therefore, a certain amount of poetic license is permitted, if not indeed required for the tourist experience. The inclusion of ghosts serves to heighten the sense of discomfort and fear for the customer” (139). They go on to state that stories of the hospital being haunted didn’t begin in 2011 with the start of the official ghost tours, but they actually began while the hospital itself was still operational…

And on that note, that’s where I’m going to end the history of Aradale Mental Hospital. I promise, though, that I will return to the ghost tour and to those stories in a couple weeks when I get to the official paranormal episode. So more on that later.

As promised, though, next week I will jaunt over to J Ward and talk about its history before getting into some patient stories. This is really where I think things get good. Knowing the history of the hospital is essential but hearing the stories of people who lived and worked there – now that’s the real draw for me about these hospitals. So be sure to stay tuned for that.

Special thanks this week again to David Waldron for sending me a copy of his book Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum while my hard copy is apparently on a yacht or something, leisurely taking its time from Australia to California.

Thank you to everyone who has joined the Facebook group and Instagram page. Be sure to check out the Beacons page for ways to support the show. And thank you all so much for listening – I appreciate it more and more each week!

But most importantly: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” Until next time…

“Ararat (Asylum 1867-1905; Hospital for the Insane 1905-1934; Mental Hospital 1934-1993; Training Centre 1966-1993; Ararat Forensic Psychiatry Centre 1991-1997; Training Centre and Mental Hospital known as non-statutory name of Aradale).” Public Records of Victoria. https://researchdata.edu.au/ararat-asylum-1867-statutory-aradale/490665

“Aradale Mental Hospital.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aradale_Mental_Hospital

Bryant, Lyndall. Investing in Australian Cities: The Legacy of the Better Cities Program. Property Council of Australia, 2016. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/96849/1/Investing-in-Australian-Cities-v1-3.pdf

Burdekin, Brian. “National Inquiry into the Human Rights of People with Mental Illness Launch of Report.” Australian Human Rights Commission, 20 October 1993. https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/burdekin-national-inquiry

Dixon, Robyn. “Aradale Patient Scandal Exposed.” The Age, 20 Nov. 1991. https://www.newspapers.com/image/123788183/

“Report of the National Inquiry into the Human Rights of People with Mental Illness.” Australian Human Rights Commission. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/publications/report-national-inquiry-human-rights-people-mental-illness

Thom, Greg. “Decades on from Landmark Report, Not Much has Changed for Vulnerable Kids, say Homelessness Hero.” Institute of Community Directors Australia, 7 Aug. 2023. https://communitydirectors.com.au/articles/decades-on-from-landmark-report-not-much-has-changed-for-vulnerable-kids-says-homelessness-hero

Waldron, David, Sharn Waldron, and Nathaniel Buchanan. Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum. Melbourne: Arcadia, 2020.

Wiesel, Ilan, and Christine Bigby. “Movement on Shifting Sands: Deinstitutionalisation and People with Intellectual Disability in Australia, 1974-2014.” Urban Policy and Research 33.2 (2015): 178-194. doi:10.1080/08111146.2014.980902