O'Malley Seeks Research on Treatment of Black Crownsville Patients

Years after the hospital's closure, Gov. Martin O'Malley is asking state health officials to review treatment of African-American patients at the Crownsville Hospital Center.

The Baltimore Sun reports O'Malley on Wednesday asked the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to recruit an academic researcher and work group to study the mental hospital, which was shuttered in 2004.

The directive came the same day the General Assembly's Legislative Black Caucus held a hearing on the hospital's history, according to the paper.

The hospital served exclusively black patients until it was integrated in the 1960s. The hospital was notoriously overcrowded during World War II and some were given lobotomies and electroshock treatment.

Nearly 2,000 patients were buried in unmarked graves on the hospital grounds, according to a 2004 Sun report. Fellow patients built the coffins and dug the graves, according to a Capital Gazette report.

In August, civil rights leaders sent a letter to O'Malley asking for a memorial to Crownsville's patients. The research work group will include at least two members from that coalition, according to the Sun report.