Deinstitutionalisation of mental health care in the Netherlands from 1993–2004

Abstract

The number of psychiatric patients in asylums in the West increased to 3,000 per asylum in the middle of the 20th century in Europe and 10,000 in the USA. These increases were due to increasing psychiatric illnesses and to the way society dealt with psychiatric patients. The need for more humane circumstances and the availability of better therapies was the basis for changes in the second half of the 20th century. In certain regions and countries in the West, another policy was developed and implemented, varying from gradually diminishing the number of admitted patients and the number of asylums to the abolishment of psychiatric institutions. In the Netherlands, after 1955, only a gradual and slow decline of 20% is seen until 1990. In 1993 a new period started with integration between ambulatory and clinical general mental hospitals (asylums).