Cuckoo's Nest to be torn down

Oregon to replace decrepit mental hospital where 'Cuckoo's Nest' was filmed
By BRAD CAIN | Associated Press Writer
6:21 PM EDT, July 15, 2008
SALEM, Ore. (AP) _ So long, Cuckoo's Nest.Oregon State Hospital, the mental institution where the 1975 movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was filmed, is making way for a new complex. Most of the dilapidated, 125-year-old main building will be torn down and replaced starting this fall.

Although mean Nurse Ratched was pure fiction, the Oregon State Hospital has struggled with some very real troubles over the years, including overcrowding, crumbling floors and ceilings, outbreaks of scabies and stomach flu, sexual abuse of children by staff members, and patient-on-patient assaults.

Politicians had been talking for years about the need to replace the hospital, but didn't get serious about it until a group of legislators made a grim discovery during a 2004 tour: the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters in a storage room. The lawmakers were stunned.

"Nobody said anything to anybody," said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, who dubbed the chamber "the room of lost souls."
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