MENTAL DISORDERS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18569, 19 December 1925, Page 14

MENTAL DISORDERS.

TREATMENT AT GENERAL HOSPITAL. (press association txlkobak.) DUNEDLN, December 18. In support of his contention special rooms should be provided in the Duuedin Hospital for mental patients, Dr. Falconer, Superintendent, 'furnished an elaborate report to the Hospital Board. This report has been referred to a committee and the honorary medical staff for a report. Dr. Falconer stated that there was no good medical ground why a patient with mental disorder should not go to a general hospital and be admitted to a psychiatric ward unless his-condi-tion was disturbing to other patients. To have all mental patients sent to a hospital some distance from the general hospital was to contir.uo the evil tradition of maintaining tho artificial division between mental and other disorders. Such artificial separation meant that patients did not get such good consolation facilities as general hospital patients. It also meant attaching a special stigma eo that the patients with mild disorders were not brought for treatment and only came under treatment at an' advanced stage. Moreover, the separation also prevented the medical and nursine staffs from becoming familiar with the problems of such disorders. Amongst the advantages of the proposed rooms would be facilities for oomplete pathological, surgical, and bio-chemical investigation of individual cases and also a more satisfactory means of educating students, not only in mental disorders but also in the psychological aspects of everyday practice.