MENTAL RECUPERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 198, 22 August 1928, Page 6

MENTAL RECUPERATION.

The Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals is faced by the same lack of accommodation for patients as many of the general hospital superintendents. At the end of last year there were 820 more patients than could be properly provided for. Although the Statutes permit medical men and other persons to receive lunatics, by permission of a magistrate, there do not seem to be many householders desirous of earning money in this way, yet the restrictions are not irksome, and as a rule the payment is more than adequate. Of course cases taken sub rosa are much more highly paid for. The Statutes also provide for the licensing of private homes for mental cases, yet there is only one in New Zealand. The wandering proclivities of our medical practitioners may account for this fact, and the lack of persons prepared to make a living by the supervision of mental cases. A s it will be many years before there is sufficient public accommodation for the rapidly-rising tide of patients, it should be suggested to the members of the medical profession with a liking for the study of mental diseases that a private mental home is more needed to-day than any one of our "nursing-home" private hospitals, and if the duty of the visiting inspectors is properly carried out the comfort and happiness of patients in a private institution must necessarily be greater than if herded together (with, perhaps, the roughest classification) in a barrack. Single cases may 'be taken in private houses if visited by a medical man (registered) and approved by the authorities. Where a doctor, humane and interested professionally in psychology, has a licensed private asylum, which is staffed by equally interested assistants, or where a doctor accepts a few of the less serious cases (under license), or those not already certificated, there is a greater chance of recovery, and much less chance of being discharged uncured, to the alarm of relatives. Altogether there were SGT3 certified lunatics in New Zealand last year (apart from many still at large—some recognised by the police), and the Inspector-General says that allowance should be made of an annual increase of 200 patients," and as the "voluntary" clinics are said to be increasingly used, this may be a minimum estimate. It is not yet promised by the authorities that there shall be a thorough classification of all mental cases in each existing institution, and the proposed "villa system" is yet a long way off. The layman sees a need for the segregation of criminal lunatics, and separate establishments for men, for women, and for juniors in each of our four main centres, and with the frankly alarming increase of mental instability there "should be preparations far in advance of those requirements already visxialised. —H.A.Y.