THE CARE THAT WAS
The Care That Was The author has spent his professional life in the mental health service in the State of Victoria, Australia. In this book he deals with the development of this service. In order to put it into perspective, a brief history of Australia’s first lunatic asylum at Castle Hill (NSW) is given. From the mid-1800s Victoria started to provide its own service. From here the author concentrates on the Victorian scene — Merri Creek Lunatic Asylum, later renamed Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum, the first public inquiry, effects of the goldrush, the first attempt to integrate mental and general hospitals in the 1860s. A despatch to the Colonial Secretary (UK) provides an opportunity to compare hospitals of the British Colonies. Then a gradual evolution, spanning many decades, from purely custodial care to remedial care, and later to normalisation and integration into the community.	In Store Price: $AU22.00  Online Price:   $AU21.00 ISBN: 1 920699 06 8 Format: Paperback Number of pages: 192 Genre:  Non fiction
Author: Harald Johann Reischel Imprint: Poseidon Publisher: Poseidon Books Date Published: October 2003 Language: English

  About the author 

Harald Johann Reischel was born in 1930, the second son of a forester in a tiny mountain hamlet in North Bohemia, Central Europe.

After escaping from the aftermath of WW II, he arrived in Port Melbourne, Australia, in 1951 on board the Greek steamer Cyrenia as an immigrant.

In 1954, he chose a career in health care, specialising in mental health nursing and teaching.

In 1970 he was commissioned by the Victorian Nursing Council to write a new training scheme for psychiatric nurses. His training scheme became accepted internationally and remained in use for over 20 years.

A qualified general and mental health nurse, holder of the Diploma in Nurse Education and Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, Australia.

In 1993, Deakin University created an award in his name to honour his work in nurse education.

He is regarded a leading nurse educationist of the 20th century in Australia.

 Review:

This book should be read by all psychiatric nurses and especially those who have responsibility for planning the future of psychiatric nursing.

This is not an account without humour, there is a rich tapestry here which keeps ones interest. By orchestrating the many different elements of this account, as he does, the reader is drawn into the drama starting off with the provision of mental health care [or lack of it] with the first settlers and ending in modern times with de-institutionalization and the closing of the asylums. For myself, largely ignorant of the history of psychiatric nursing in Victoria, I find Harald Reischel's account a very helpful one.

Introduction:

This book is a response to requests from many of my former students and colleagues. I gained my experiences in the field of mental health in Victoria, hence this is where I have concentrated my coverage of events. To put the Victorian development into perspective, I have included the initial developments in the Penal Colony of New South Wales.

Source material from early years is rather sparse and mostly contained in colonial despatches and government reports. I have tried much to draw on samples from a wider field such as newspapers, popular magazines, journals and earlier authors.

From the middle of the 20th century onwards, material is in such abundance, hampering research through overload. Departmental and government reports are much more voluminous and frequent, but say little about hospital matrons, principal nurses and nursing staff, except for in-house newsletters. These newsletters and individual hospital newspapers are a valuable research source.

Mental nurses were the largest staff component and carried the greatest workload. They had yet to assert themselves just as their medical colleagues had when they finally shook off the label 'alienists', that had been awarded them through the orthodoxy of their profession.

A huge reservoir of local history is yet to be tapped, mainly of individual mental asylums of earlier years. History is so fugitive by nature that unless we capture it in time it soon becomes lost.

From the 1950s to the 80s we witnessed an era in mental health care that by comparison with earlier years can only be described in laudable terms. It was an era of unprecedented emancipation coupled with humane stewardship.

From the late 1980s onwards changes were implemented to affect the closure of mental hospitals, following similar moves in the US and UK. High expectations were raised by strongly appealing to social justice and human rights.

Mental hospitals were closed without adequate alternative services being in place. The community was unaware of the impact of such a move. Likewise, it confused many discharged mental patients who did not know what the future held in store for them. In the overall confusion the police picked up many. Some had obtained dangerous weapons. In encounters with police, four were fatally wounded. The police had not been trained to deal with mental patients, nor were they sufficiently forewarned. Social justice and human rights were gravely compromised.

Advice not to act too hastily was regarded as reactionary. The whole scheme needed more planning. There is now a spillover of problems into areas of housing, homelessness, welfare and charitable organisations, family breakdown, law enforcement, volunteer effort, and more. Care is fragmented and is by many regarded wanting, but still high by present world standards, especially when compared with the still existing ‘asylums’ in some ‘third world’ countries.

Three years into the 21st century, health care reforms were overtaken by external and internal events. Australia’s participation in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, East Timor peacekeeping, global terrorism, illegal immigration and people smuggling, the Solomon Islands military intervention, and the greatest drought and bushfires in Australia’s history.

 Harald Johann Reischel, Warburton, August 2003.

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