Topic summary
Bethlem Hospital
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Bethlem Royal Hospital.
750th anniversary and "Reclaim Bedlam" campaign
In 1997 the hospital started planning celebrations of its 750th anniversary. The service users' perspective was not to be included, however, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement saw nothing to celebrate in either the original Bedlam or in the current practices of mental health professionals towards those in need of care. A campaign called "Reclaim Bedlam" was launched by Pete Shaughnessy, supported by hundreds of patients and ex-patients and widely reported in the media. A sit-in was held outside the earlier Bedlam site at the Imperial War Museum. The historian Roy Porter called the Bethlem Hospital "a symbol for man's inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty."