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A doctor visits each patient monthly, a nurse every other week. Though the program is geared to the long-term patient, about half of the patients newly placed in foster homes are able to go home after about 16 months. Those who remain in Geel, some for as long as 50 years, may make little if any progress, but at least they are exposed to normal human conversation and society and have the simple dignity of honest work. Patients are treated like members of their foster families, eating with them, sleeping in their own rooms, helping with household and farm chores (or working outside the house in bakeries, dairies or shops), sharing in the upbringing of the children or going out to movies and clubhouses. Families learn to tolerate a certain amount of odd behavior, and Geel has been remarkably free of mishaps. Thanks in part to the use of modern tranquilizers, there has been no serious outburst of violence by a patient for at least 15 years.
Gentle Rhythm. Patience, understanding and the gentle rhythm of life have been almost the only real treatment at Geel. Now Matheussen is planning to set up several neighborhood treatment centers where patients will meet regularly for group therapy, schooling and vocational training. This additional therapy may be crucial to Geel's survival because modern life is at last changing the town's stable, close-knit medieval patterns. Factory jobs are replacing the farm work that is suitable for many patients. Trucks and cars thunder through the square, their drivers not accustomed to watching for dazed people who forget to look both ways at corners.
The use of these intensive-treatment neighborhood centers may mean that more patients will recover, so that families will be required to surrender their charges. That will present Matheussen with a special problem of diplomacy, since many do not want to let their boarders go. "Families adjust," he sighs. "They get attached to their patients."