Catalogue information
Huismunt (reward token) of the Maasoord psychiatric hospital, now the Delta Psychiatric hospital in Poortugaal. Maasoord started in 1894 as the so-called Doorgangshuis (which has its roots in the Dol- en Pesthuis) and which only offered initial care to temporary patients. The Doorgangshuis was once located in the middle of densely populated Rotterdam and grew at the seams. In 1902, the municipality gave permission to build a municipal insane asylum. This was very special, because the initiative usually lay with private organizations, often with a religious signature. Far from Rotterdam, in the municipality of Poortugaal, a plot of land was purchased on the Oude Maas. Maasoord was opened on July 24, 1909. Maasoord served the large city with a world port, which in turn presented characteristic problems. In principle, Maasoord was for the people of Rotterdam. Only patients who were dependent on care for the poor were included. Special patients were the psychologically distressed shipmen and emigrants. From Eastern Europe they had gone to America with the Holland-America Line, but not admitted because of their psychological condition. After a temporary stay in Maasoord, they were then sent away to, for example, the country of origin. At the opening in 1909, Maasoord could take in 600 patients, but that was soon too little. The construction of additional pavilions made it one of the largest insane asylums in the Netherlands in early 1914 with 1000 residents. Over time, treatment methods and medications changed. Early bed and bath treatments led in the 1920s via more active therapy (sticking bags, scroll saws) to creative therapy (painting, drawing, sculpting) in the 1950s. Maasoord was renamed the Delta Hospital in 1958.
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