CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 18

CORRESPONDENCE.

POINTS FROM LETTERS.

EX-SERVICEMBN IN MENTAL

HOSPITALS. sympathising with the view* expressed in the letters of *Under r ground Artillery," "Forgotten Men," etc., I should like to record both mjadmiration for the treatment extended to ex-service men in mental hospitals and my deprecation of letters which, perhaps quite unconsciously, insinuate that men who have served their country are (1) not being properly looked after and (2> disgraced socially by being labelled "mental." It would surprise the man in the street if he knew how many and who avail themselves of the voluntary boarder privilege and quite of their own accord enter a mental hospital for a cure. Hypersensitive men broken by working too little or too hard and not training enough—for overwork alone does not make mental victims to any extent—finding themselves misanthropic and unpopular repeatedly put themselves where, by rest and gradually increasing work, they can get up the cleansing sweat that heralds the release from their obsessions. I know of one man who owes much of his present happiness to the secretary of an R.S.A. branch, who cheered him up when a voluntary boarder undergoing eelfinflicted incarceration, who refused to acknowledge he was abnormal or let him think so. and when he came out. would not let him entertain, in sub eequent fits of depression, the thought of returning to another period of selfsentenced soft labour. So much for the helpful work of an official visitor. As an attendant of 25 years ago and a 'phone clerk of 12 years ago in one of ' our largest institutions for the mentally disturbed, 1 think my words should carry weight when I say that conditions in mental hoepitals have so changed that it is difficult to realise that the old overcrowding. door-locking, clothessearching, white-wearing system ever existed. The patience of 99 per cent of attendants is exemplary —and inhumane treatment is not tolerated. If it is economically possible to reopen Hanmer and stock it with service patients then may the good thing go on. But work ie as good for the mentally sick as it is for sustenance shirkers, and if Hanmer is to be a place when the neurasthenic under cover can lounge around writing, playing indoor games, and reading in lovely weather, then it is better that service men remain where work is encouraged. if not insisted on. Rather let ue stress the fact that nowadays there is no longer, or should be no longer, airy stigma, attaching to confinement, voluntary or otherwise, in the modern sanatorium for those whose nervous systems art out of harmony. ALLEA.