SPECIAL WARDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 172, 23 July 1929, Page 3

SPECIAL WARDS.

NERVOUS AND MENTAL CASES. EXTENSION OF SERVICE. MINISTER SYMPATHETIC. '3y Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. In view of the increasingly large number of patients attending the clinics established at public hospitals in the four main centres for the treatment of cases of incipient nervous and mental afflictions, the question of providing special wards is brought into prominence. Representations in this direction have recently been made to the Minister of Health,' the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, and to-day he told a deputation that the provision of these wards was one of the. questions which had been engaging his attention for some time. He said the clinics were being attended by increasing numbers seeking advice and treatment, and the number of weekly sessions would shortly have to be increased. The usefulness of the clinics would be greatly enhanced if a ward in each of the four chief hospitals were set apart for cases which required more exhaustive examination than was possible in an outpatient department. The services of specialists would be made available to meet such a desirable development, and efforts were being made to secure the co-opera-tion of the hospital boards in the main centres.

The manifest advantage to patients and to the country of promoting early treatment in the pre-certifiable stage of mental disorder was so obvious as to need no comment, said the Minister. He felt sure of the most earnest co-opera-tion of all concerned.