The shameful legacy of the former Lennox Castle Hospital

An excellent article on BBC News (07.01.22) from Michael McEwan (Journalist and Disability Rights Campaigner) on the ‘shameful legacy of the former Lennox Castle Hospital’.

The article features Dates-n-Mates Glasgow member Hughie McIntyre who bravely tells his harrowing story of living for 16 years in the former institution “I didn’t know why I was there, or what I did to deserve this”.

Friend of C-Change Frances Brown, former mental health nurse, who had spent several weeks at Lennox Castle as part of her training was involved in the decommissioning process of the hospital. Frances comments on the time she spent there as “probably the worst experience of my professional career and probably my life…People were just not treated as human.”

C-Change CEO Dr Sam Smith also features in the article. Sam was also involved in the decommissioning process and in helping residents establish what they needed to move on. This was indeed the very origin of C-Change.

Sam comments “I thought what we were doing when we were closing the hospital was not just helping those people who lived there move out, but we were also ensuring the other families and individuals didn’t have places like Lennox Castle as the only choice available if things got difficult.”

Read the full article via BBC Scotland News: bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59755040

In 2012 C-Change along with Project Ability ran a social history project titled ‘Lennox Castle Stories’. Click here to watch a video capturing some of the stories from the participants (former residents) of the project.

Watch video titled The shameful legacy of the former Lennox Castle Hospital (accompaniment to the article) below via our YouTube channel