#MyReadCashHistory: Barbacena Psychiatric Hospital#2
Angel was so right, now he understood his concern, but his intentions were never bad, it was the only psychiatric center in the city and he thought of me when he learned of its existence.
Endless brutalities have paraded before my eyes since my arrival. Where to start?
The patients are in terrible conditions, they are constantly beaten by the personnel who work here, mostly by the nurses. Many of these patients are naked, and those who have garments are tattered rags; my boss's explanation is lack of government support. All the patients look dirty, they are not cleaned frequently, (only when on rare occasions a relative approaches and "lends" the patients a clean set of clothes to avoid the claim of the relatives). A pressure hose that shoots jets of cold water is responsible for washing their emaciated bodies. The poor diet has made them lose the little body fat that some already afflicted, I have surprised more than one eating insects and worms extracted from the earth.
As I have told you, there are almost no visits to the sick, I have only seen two, and when they arrive they have to do so with prior notice. This to make up the oversights on the patient, the visit is made in a room that is in an area far from the horrors of the sanatorium. I suspect that people know what happens, they are not stupid, they just don't care, they see all these crazy people as people without possible composure and social reintegration. Doctor Bahía probably has something to do with this, with the silence of those who visit the hospital. The influence of this character in the city is impressive.
Most of the mentally ill were homeless people, many of whom roamed the streets of Barbacena, (that explains the family's absence) also influenced by the fact that the mayor sought to clean the streets of Minas Gerias, the crazy street people of the city and from all over the state ended up here.
There have been things that have impressed me a lot. On one occasion, a patient who suffered from diabetes and who was known as "Matildo" fell into a ditch in the courtyard of the institute. He suffered a calf injury that would not close due to his illness.
I was with Dr. Bahía, we were reviewing the admissions of patients for that year when a robust nurse entered his office and requested his presence in the nursing room. Bahia asked me to accompany him. The infirmary section of the hospital was very deteriorated, they did not even have the basic products to clean and disinfect wounds. Once we arrived we saw Matildo sitting on a stretcher, the thick liquid of pus was pouring out of his cut, small yellowish dots were already falling on the floor of the infirmary. Brener observed the situation, crouched down to see Matildo's infected wound, straightened up and placed his hands on his lower back, as if meditating on the facts; he sought the eyes of all those present, then turning to the nurse who looked for him in his office,
The nurse did not hesitate, I tried to leave the room but Brener's gripping hand on my arm prevented me from moving from the place, she suggested I stay to "desensitize myself".
Two strong male nurses (one of them Hélio) immobilized a confused Matildo, immediately afterwards the robust nurse squatted down and with a rusty hacksaw in hand began to saw ten centimeters above the madman's wound; Matildo's screams reverberated through the windows of the room, his tears rolled rapidly down his cheeks, the nurse's white suit showed splashes of fresh blood, he felt my stomach churning.
Matildo ended up exhausted and pale, he had lost a lot of blood but he survived, the conditions for him now were complicated, I always found him dragging himself on the filthy floor of the hospital.
The indignation that I experienced that day made me plant myself in front of Doctor Brener, I spat strong words at him reproaching him for his activities, what he told me was decisive, with all calm and coldness, he expressed to me:
“I understand your professional ethics, my very dear Doctor Vázquez, but I remind you that you signed under the commitment to adhere to the way of working in this institute, I know that our methods are not well received, and I understand if you want to leave and denounce the facts here witnessed, but I'll tell you what: If you walk away or try to report the activities of the hospital, I will personally see to it that you are deported and return to the ravages of your civil war. Believe me, the interests of this sanatorium are watched over by very important people of this nation, do not do anything stupid, just obey and you will be able to live peacefully on our soil”
Brener Bahía always seemed to be aware of everything, he had me in his hands, if he wanted to clench his fists, he could crush me like an insect.
After those disastrous events, my functions became more isolated to an administrative sector, sometimes I had no knowledge of what really happened with the patients. There was a time when the patients were too restless, they shouted, hit each other, and laughed incessantly, this bothered Bahia, since the medicines were out of date and he did not keep the crazy people doped. Hélio was in charge of subduing the most restless patients, they were taken to a kind of dungeon, it only had a rectangular opening where they could breathe, the space was too small that they had to stand inside the punishment room, sometimes they were locked up for up to three days and without receiving food, only dirty water.
But not even the dungeon could cope with so many unbridled madmen in the sanatorium. Doctor Bahía thought of a quicker solution for which he required my help. First, the patient was drugged to the point of rendering him unconscious, then he was taken to a disused operating room with very little lighting. He would lie on a bed and Bahía would apply the Freeman method to the patient; With an ice pick and rubber mallet he hammered the ice pick into the skull just above the tear duct and moved it until it severed the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. He applied lobotomies to all "violent" lunatics. In a short time we had hordes of real zombies walking around the Berbecena facilities.
Things were really out of control, my mental health felt like it was slipping. My silence and control of will made my existence a martyrdom, to make things worse Angel had returned to Spain in search of his wife who had escaped from Franco's army, was dedicated to providing medical services for his army, and had managed to elude them, weeks later I found out that both were shot to death when they were embarking back to Brazil at the Port of Carboneras.
New patients arrived at the sanatorium. I had to review the clinical records of these. One of them caught my attention, according to the information in the file that he suffered from Cotard's syndrome (disease that makes a person believe they are dead in life), a very rare disease that motivated me to personally examine the patient.
Sneaking out of Bahia, I managed to locate the man. He was surrounded by other crazy people who poked him with index fingers, he defended himself by slapping them. He had been stripped of his clothes, he only kept his underwear. When I approached him, he tried to avoid my eyes, he was moving away from me; I tried to follow up on his problem. He never answered the questions that he asked him, I never saw in the symptom of madness or adverse psychological suffering, the poor guy was just dumb, and he had ended up in this branch of hell.
And so I found many more, people who should not be here fell into this Brazilian concentration camp. Autistic, deaf and dumb, people with down syndrome, among others, came to the sanatorium every day. The capacity of the institute as well as the food was insufficient. Dr. Bahía began to eliminate the oldest and least important to him. With a few others he experimented with new forms of lobotomy, most dying instantly. I escaped from one regime, to be part of another.
