Concerns about stereotyping of the mentally ill could make the Utah State Hospital's Haunted Castle disappear for good at the end of tonight's show.
"It may or may not be the last season," said hospital director Mark Payne.However, eliminating the holiday attraction could hurt the very people groups such as the Utah Alliance for the Mentally Ill are trying to protect, the castle's advocates said.
The castle is a fund-raiser that pulls in around $100,000 each year. That money pays for recreational programs at the hospital, a spokesman said.
Critics of the annual event charge that it perpetuates myths that the mentally ill are dangerous and need to be feared.
Bruce Smith, president of the alliance's Utah County chapter, said the alliance has not taken a strong stand against the castle but is concerned about the message it sends.
"There is a lot of discrimination against the mentally ill. If you're mentally ill, you must be violent, so (the castle) plays into the stereotype," Smith said. "We are fighting the stigma, and this is one way to diminish it."
Leland Slaughter, the hospital's director of recreational therapy, said the castle was the idea of patients who wanted to run a spook alley to celebrate the holiday with the staff and fellow patients.
In time, it evolved into a public event and a fund-raiser for the hospital's recreational therapy program.
An average of 2,500 people arrive nightly to have the daylights scared out of them. Ten to 15 patients join with up to 90 staffers and community volunteers to create the castle and bring its spooks to life.
The event raises $100,000 a year for the recreational therapy program, Slaughter said. The money is used to finance outings such as camping trips. Without that, the budget for the program would be cut in half and the patients would be the losers, he said.
Slaughter said the recreational program helps by allowing patients to get out of a hospital setting and to come out of their shells.
"I think it is part of good quality care," Payne said.
Smith said his son participated in the castle when he was being treated at the hospital and he had a good time. But Smith believes there is also the issue of eliminating the stereotypes that feed insurance and employment discrimination against the mentally ill. He said the state is considering alternatives for funding the recreation program.
However, Payne and Janina Chilton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, said there is no alternative funding available at this point.
The department attempted to get state funding, but lawmakers deemed it a low-priority issue, Chilton said.