PATIENTS IN MENTAL HOSPITALS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20989, 18 October 1933, Page 8

PATIENTS IN MENTAL HOSPITALS

] EFFECT OF UNUSUAL STRESS [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.'! WELLINGTON, October 17. "The heavy burden imposed on the community by the steadily increasing number of patients maintained in mental hospitals and kindred institutions has become a matter of deep public concern, not only in New Zealand but in most other countries where the present financial stringency has necessitated a strict scrutiny of public expenditure," states the Director-General of Mental Hospitals, Dr. T. G. Gray, in his annual report presented to Parliament to-day. Dr. Gray stated that in Great Britain a scientific committee had been set up to go into the causes and possible relief of mental disorders.

Contrary to popular belief, he continued, serious massed stresses did not. produce insanity. In tact, the evidence was all m the other direction. During the war period the proportion of adult female patients admitted was consistently] lower than in normal years, although these wives and parents of men on service were being subjected to prolonged and unusual mental stress. In Napier, a few hours after the catastrophe, numerous cases were seen which were indistinguishable from the shell shock of the trenches, but there were 22 fewer cases of severe mental disorder admitted from the Hawke's Bay area in the year following the earthquake than in the previous 12 months, and in no individual case could the disaster be ascribed as the cause. One would be tempted to expect that distress arising from the prevailing economic difficulties would be reflected in an increase in admissions. Actually the total admissions, including voluntary boarders, were 10 less than in the previous year.

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