This afternoon, I attended lecture and shadowed a doctor at Catawba Hospital of The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. The building was originally part of the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs Resort, so the hospital allegedly sits upon a beautiful campus. I say "allegedly" because today it was shrouded in rain and fog. I had to drive over Catawba Mountain to get there, and most of the time I couldn't see more than 20 feet in front of me. Upon my arrival, I found the hospital sitting eerily in the mountainside. Yeah.
Catawba Hospital is a mental health hospital that primarily services the geriatric population of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. It also cares for people who have escaped convictions from the legal system by declaring legal insanity. So, is this starting to sound like Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane to you yet?
At the end of my visit, the doctor I was working with had to let me out of the building, because all of the doors are locked. Funny story: one time, an elderly woman was visiting her friend at the hospital. When she left to go home, the security team wouldn't let her out. She said, "I swear, I'm not a patient!" only to be told, "Yeah, that's what they all say." They brought her back upstairs to one of the floors, where the nursing staff recognized that she really wasn't one of their patients and let her leave.
Hmm, too soon.
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