HOME FOR EPILEPTICS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22337, 26 February 1938, Page 13

HOME FOR EPILEPTICS

TO I'HB EDITOR OV THB PRESS. Sir, —In the last few months, enough has been written in your columns about the administration of mental hospitals to make one lee] very unhappy. The fact that patients who enter these institutions cannot defend themselves makes it desirable that they be treated with the utmost fairness and generosity, and that conditions should be of the very best. Yet exactly the reverse seems to be the case. Perhaps "the worst aspect of the problem is the lack of classification, particularly as regards the epileptics. Members of Parliament themselves know quite well that there are many persons in mental hospitals who should not be there; but where else are they to be put? They have no time to answer that question; they think other matters are more pressing. What is first needed is more contact between these institutions and the community itself. In fact, they should be run on exactly the same lines as our hospitals are at present. Two reforms suggest themselves which could be introduced with comparatively little trouble or expense. I. That mental hospitals be controlled by elected boards, just as hospitals are. 11. That voluntary honorary visitors be appointed, and the more the better. For obvious reasons the presept official visitors, who are paid, cannot press for reforms as the honorary ones would. I cannot think of any reforms more urgently needed in New Zealand than reforms in the mental hospitals.— Yours, etc., D.M.M. Timaru, February 23, 1938.