In our world today quality of life is focused on many factors relating to many types of people. However, we still have a long way to go as far as providing high quality care to those who cannot advocate for themselves. A theme that has come up often both in our readings and in our class discussions is the idea of care and the quality of care that should be provided for all people. In institutions, the quality of care has been far from acceptable over the years and has caused traumatic experiences for more people than we will ever truly know. A book about experiences in the emergency room shares the story of a 58 year old man who came in because of a seizure disorder. When the doctor pulled back his gown listening for his heartbeat, he noticed
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One day when all of the children were gone the workers did a deep cleaning of the building and threw away some letters from the man’s mother that meant more to him than anyting else. When he came home and realized they were gone, he started screaming, crying, and pitching an enormous fit. When numerous attempts to quiet and calm him down failed, …show more content…
People believed that the disabled had the devil inside of them and had done something wrong to deserve this punishment and so they were avoided as much as possible. Between the 1800s and the 1920s is when there was a clear division in treatment for people with disabilities. Some were put up in the circus or other shows as acts because they were considered freaks of nature that were amusing entertainment. The rest were considered to be defective and unimportant to society and so were kept hidden and left alone. In 1848 the first “residential institution for people with mental retardation” was opened.3 During the 1930s and 1940s institutions started opening up and sterilization of the inferior population became a huge part of society. Anyone deemed unfit to have children was sterilized, whether they understood what was occurring or gave permission or not. Many of them were killed. It wasn’t until the 1970s and on that those with disabilities were finally thought of as actual people and given some value in society. This is when students started to have some type of mainstream education, more independent living options came into being, and sterilization was no longer forced on as many
One day when all of the children were gone the workers did a deep cleaning of the building and threw away some letters from the man’s mother that meant more to him than anyting else. When he came home and realized they were gone, he started screaming, crying, and pitching an enormous fit. When numerous attempts to quiet and calm him down failed, …show more content…
People believed that the disabled had the devil inside of them and had done something wrong to deserve this punishment and so they were avoided as much as possible. Between the 1800s and the 1920s is when there was a clear division in treatment for people with disabilities. Some were put up in the circus or other shows as acts because they were considered freaks of nature that were amusing entertainment. The rest were considered to be defective and unimportant to society and so were kept hidden and left alone. In 1848 the first “residential institution for people with mental retardation” was opened.3 During the 1930s and 1940s institutions started opening up and sterilization of the inferior population became a huge part of society. Anyone deemed unfit to have children was sterilized, whether they understood what was occurring or gave permission or not. Many of them were killed. It wasn’t until the 1970s and on that those with disabilities were finally thought of as actual people and given some value in society. This is when students started to have some type of mainstream education, more independent living options came into being, and sterilization was no longer forced on as many