The patients’ private environment, including family, friends, neighbours and other community members, was an important player in institutional mental health care. It was mainly family members who paid the hospital fees (see Chapter 3), but also applied for admission, were responsible for the patients, brought them to the institution, provided information about them and requested their discharge. Although information on all these aspects is not equally available in the two institutions, there is sufficient evidence to show that the Eginitio and the Dromokaitio were used by the patients’ private environment and sometimes by the patients themselves, and to illustrate the different ways in which private intervention in and management of hospitalisation took place.