A state hospital is a hospital funded and operated by the government of a state. In some countries, such as South Africa, the term is synonymous with public hospital. In other countries, like the United States, general public hospitals are operated by local governments. Due in part to the efforts of Dorothea Dix, the term "state hospital" generally refers to a public psychiatric hospital operated by a state government for persons committed to compulsory psychiatric care after being found not guilty of serious violent crimes on the basis of insanity.
In the United Kingdom, the term may refer to one particular psychiatric hospital:
- State Hospital for Scotland and Northern Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or hospital:
“There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sun his hand uncloses like a statue,
Irrevocably: thereby such light is freed
That all the dingy hospital of snow
Dies back to ditches.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)