Willard State Hospital Visitation and Inspection Records

Arranged by inspection official and therein chronological.

This series consists of reports documenting formal inspections and official visits by Department of Mental Hygiene personnel to Willard Asylum for the Insane (later Willard State Hospital).

The Lunacy Commissioners' Visiting Book (September 1889 - September 1910) contains handwritten minutes and notes of visitations (annually, quarterly, or semiannually) by Commissioners of the Commission in Lunacy including observations of specific conditions, practices, and activities at the facility; recommendations; and requests for changes, improvements, and expenditures and estimated costs. Also included are names of patients seen, conversed with, and verified as having been admitted since previous visit. Topics of some interviews with patients are recorded. Also recorded are recommendations made at the commissioners' meetings in Albany.

Commissioner's Notes of Visitation and Inspection (September 1889 - July 1942) contain accounts of each visit including staff present; discussions with superintendents; requests and projected costs for improvements, new construction, and repairs; notes of buildings and grounds visited; general observations of conditions of facilities and patients; brief census information; and accounts of interviews with patients.

Medical Inspectors' Notes of Visitation (May 1904 - July 1965) consist of typescript narrative and statistical reports. Information includes date and time of inspection; staff on duty; numbers of patients at the institution, in several categories; statements concerning new patients interviewed, including their complaints; accounts of special interviews conducted with patients at their request; narrative reports of deaths, suicides, attempted suicides, and accidents sustained by patients since last inspection; statements of repairs and improvements to facilities; projects and contracts completed; notes on food services; recommendations for some specific patient cases; numbers of patients in restraints and seclusion; and types of treatments and therapy being performed.

Some reports give detailed individual reports for each building. Most recent reports contain printed checklists and fewer narratives.

These records were transferred to the State Archives from Willard Psychiatric Center at the time of its closure in April, 1995.

Records identifying patients are restricted in accordance with Mental Hygiene Law, Section 33.13, relating to confidentiality of clinical records. Access is permitted under certain conditions upon approval by the Office of Mental Health.