Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

89CHAPTER THREEINSTITUTIONALISED CARE:SOUTH AUSTRALIAN HISTORYAND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES“ ... despite the fact that the defects of institutions have been known for the 200 yearsthat they have existed, they have remained unaddressed.” 221"The house of confinement was no longer only the lazar house at the city's edge; it wasleprosy confronting the town: ‘A terrible ulcer upon the body politic ...’ " 222My name is Tom Allen. I was born in 1912. I was first sent to aninstitution when I was two or three years old. When I was six years old Ibecame very sick and was sent home because the people in the institutionthought I was going to die and they wanted me to die at home.We were a large happy family. Then my mother died suddenly. Myfather married again and they could not take care of me at home and sent meto the institution again when I was 15 years old. I was only meant to be therefor a year or two but I ended up spending 45 years in this institution ...I did not like being in this institution. I felt like no one cared about me. Ifelt all alone in the world, angry and hurt. I was desperate. No one in theinstitution understood me and the staff punished me for my behaviours. I wassent to the back ward with the most disabled people. 223221 Oliver, Understanding Disability, 93-94.222 Mercier, Louis-Sebastien. Tableau De Paris, cited in Foucault, Madness and Civilization.192.223 Allen, Traustadottir, et al., “Sixty Tears in the Institution,” 33.