Mental Institutions pushed to release names of their dead

The number of dead in psychiatric cemeteries is larger than many people realize. It is a nasty little secret that the profession would greatly prefer remained undisclosed. No wonder they oppose this. As reported in the Sioux City Journal

In a grove of evergreens on the western fringe of the old insane asylum's grounds, their secret is still kept.

Buried here are nearly 1,000 "inmates," as they were called, who died at the Hastings Regional Center from 1888 to 1959. A small gray stone marks each grave.

There are no names, no birth dates, no death dates.

Just patient numbers.

The cemetery typifies how state mental institutions across the country buried their dead in the same anonymous fashion during an era when the stigma associated with mental illness was so strong that the afflicted often were dropped off quietly at the institution, never to hear from their families again.

Now, mental health advocates, historians and other people have joined a growing chorus to get states to make the names public.

"These people are being denied the fact that they lived and died, and it's disgraceful," said Catherine Renschler, executive director of the Adams County Historical Society, who is pushing Nebraska to make public the identity of the people buried in the Hastings cemetery.

The number of mental patients buried at mental institutions across the nation runs into the hundreds of thousands, said clinical psychologist Pat Deegan of Byfield, Mass., who advocates getting states to release the names.

Deegan, institutionalized for schizophrenia as a teen, has worked on restoration projects at institutional cemeteries in 22 states.

"This, for us, is about dignity and respect and combating stigma," Deegan said. "We're not going to hide in the shadows any longer. We're not going to hide behind these anonymous numbers. We're taking our place as citizens and demand to be respected."

No comprehensive list of states that have made the names public is available, but Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington, South Carolina, Maine and Wisconsin have done so.

Next month, a coalition of mental health advocacy groups will complete plans for a memorial garden at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington that will honor the anonymous dead. States will be represented by stones woven into the landscape, each bearing the name of institutions with cemeteries and how many people are buried there, said project coordinator Larry Fricks of Atlanta, board member of Mental Health America, formerly the National Mental Health Association.

"It's for anyone buried and forgotten at these places," Fricks said.

Laws and policies on making the names public vary by state. Some withhold names of the buried, some will release names if ordered by a court and some have open records, Fricks said.

The Nebraska Health and Human Services System, which operates the Hastings hospital, said privacy laws prevent it from releasing the names.

Renschler's attorney, Thomas Burke of San Francisco, has asked for an opinion from the Attorney General's Office on the matter. Burke argues that all death records should be public and that a patient's right to privacy ends after he or she dies, especially if death occurred 50 to 100 years ago.

Nancy Kinyoun, the hospital's health information manager, said burial records go back to 1909. Even if the attorney general sides with Renschler, records won't be released without a court order or change in statute, Kinyoun said.

Fricks, who led an effort to restore the cemetery at Milledgeville, Ga. -- once considered the world's largest insane asylum -- said it is a weak argument for states to use privacy as a reason for withholding burial records.

"It's a new day," Fricks said. "These people, if their families love them and want to find them, we need to help them. People who are buried have a right to have their name and a right to respect."

Renschler said she receives several inquiries a month from families interested in tracing their genealogy, and some suspect an ancestor might be buried at the Hastings hospital.

"It's frustrating for people who are searching for lost family members," she said. "Some know their relative was sent to the regional center, and they don't know what happened to them. Some are told their relative died in Hastings, and they don't know why they were in Hastings. They don't realize there is a mental institution here."

Kinyoun said families can find out burial information on death certificates, which are public record. She said families also can obtain patient records by court order on a "need-to-know" basis.

"I've never known anyone to be denied," she said.

But Renschler said families sometimes don't have enough information about a relative, such as formal name and birth date, to gain access to a death certificate. And many, she said, can't afford the expense of hiring an attorney to force the issue.

"We are not asking for medical records," Renschler said. "All we're looking for is the name and dates of their death or burial."

Marj Colburn, the Hastings hospital's operating officer, said a family's suspicion that a relative might be buried there doesn't justify opening the records for a "fishing expedition." She said her cemetery is different from others because everyone knows why people were there.

And even though there isn't as much shame associated with mental illness these days -- the residents are now called "clients" rather than "inmates" -- the stigma still exists, Colburn said.

"It would be like going to another cemetery and saying, 'Here is the HIV section, here is the cancer section,"' Colburn said.