Gasthuismuseum

Museum of the Geel boarding tradition, in a former hospital

The museum of Geel's tradition of community psychiatric care, housed in the former Sint-Elisabeth Hospital. Permanent displays cover the medieval pilgrimage, the development of the boarding system from the fourteenth century onward, the role of the religious orders, and the modern medical-social framework. Old patient records, photographs of the boarders and their host families, and the actual rooms in which patients were assessed give the story unusual immediacy.

The museum is small — about 90 minutes will see it through — and the captions are available in English. Closed Mondays.

things to do museum
A story
For 700 years Geel families have taken people with mental illness into their homes as boarders, sometimes for life. At its 1938 peak the system housed 3,800 patients in private homes; the practice continues today, though on a much smaller scale and within a modern medical framework.