Four Winds Mount Kisco

[Subaru]

Hi

Does anyone know if there are records of patients in Four Winds in 1930? I have a relation who was going there on the passenger list to visit Mrs Walsh/Welsh but can't find any more information about it. I think it was her aunt.

Thanks
Rosemary

[aghadowey]

Have you checked to see if Mrs. Walsh/Welsh could have been an employee of the hospital rather than a patient?

[Subaru]

I thought about that, but would they not have given their residence rather than workplace? It looks like it was taken over years ago. I'm at a full stop at the moment.
Thanks
Rosemary

[aghadowey]

Many of the staff probably lived onsite. I suspect that if someone was arriving in America they were unlikely to give the name of a relative who was in a mental institution.

[Subaru]

Fair point. Was it always a mental institution? Not much info about it before it was taken over.

Thanks
Rosemary

[aghadowey]

New York Times, 11 July 1978:
Dr. John Pierce Lambert, a psychiatrist who retired in 1975 after serving since 1954 as medical director of Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, N.Y., died yesterday in Northern Westchester Hospital, Mount Kisco, N.Y., after a long illness. He was 69 years old and lived at Four Winds Hospital.

Doctor Lambert was the son of the late Dr. Charles I. Lambert, who founded Four Winds, a private psychiatric facility, in 1925.The son won a bachelor's degree at Princeton University in 1931 and his medical degree in 1935 at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He had been associated for a number of years with various hospitals and medical organizations in the metropolitan area.
Dr. Lambert is survived by ...
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/11/archives/obituary-1-no-title.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Irwin_Lambert

[Subaru]

Thank you so much for this. So interesting. Looks like it hadn't been there much before my relative travelled there. It gives me something to go on.
Thanks
Rosemary

[shellyesq]

The New York state archives has some psychiatric records, but the rules significantly limit who can access them.

Psychiatric center patient records

Access to all records of patients of state psychiatric centers (in several cases these facilities were formerly known as asylums or state hospitals) is indefinitely restricted

    See Mental Hygiene Law (MHL) sect. 33.13
    See (federal) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
    Restrictions apply regardless of the date of the record.

MHL sect. 33.13 does authorize disclosure of information from patient records for specified legal and administrative purposes, and also to “qualified researchers.” Disclosure of information from patient records is also authorized by MHL sect. 33.16 to patients themselves and to other “qualified persons.”

All requests for access to patient records received by the State Archives are forwarded to the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), which reviews and approves or disapproves such requests.

Conditions and procedures for obtaining access to psychiatric center patient records in the State Archives differ for qualified researchers and former patients and their legal representatives, immediate family members, and descendants:
Qualified researchers

Researchers engaged in medical, historical, or other research are given access to psychiatric center patient records, under a provision of MHL sect. 33.13 and an inter-agency MOU between the OMH and the State Archives.

A researcher needing access to patient records should request an application form from the State Archives reference services unit and return the completed application to the Archives. The Archives then forwards the application to OMH. An OMH Institutional Review Board reviews the application and determines whether the applicant is a qualified researcher to whom the records may be disclosed. A qualified researcher must agree not to redisclose identifying information about any patient.

https://www.archives.nysed.gov/research/res_serv_access

[Subaru]

Thank you. I was hoping to find Mrs Welsh/Walsh's first name so that I can make the link. Looking at the passenger list again it says friend rather than aunt. So she could have worked there.
Regards
Rosemary