In 1955, 50% of beds in the United states were psychiatric beds. A fact made in the book Every Other Bed by the infamous author Mike Gorman. This is because public hospitals admitted more patients than they discharged for many years. In Fiscal year 1925 Worcester state hospital started with a count of 2,523 patients, admitted 643 and discharged 427 patients. Ending the year with an overall number of 2,739 patients in the hospital. Following this pattern, over a decade a hospital's patient count could increase by 2,000.
From 1900 to 1955 public psychiatric hospitals were given minimal resources to grapple with the increase of patient population. Eventually, these hospitals were disemboweled. The hospitals and the staff that worked there were shown in a dark manner.
The increase in population for these psychiatric hospitals during the 1950’s mainly consisted of patients with syphilis of the elderly.
During this time there was a change from rural and agricultural society to an industrial one. These changes left no one to take care of their the elderly family members, ultimately leaving that responsibility to the state.
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