HOSPITAL FOR NERVE CASES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22338, 28 February 1938, Page 9

HOSPITAL FOR NERVE CASES

TO THE EDITOR OV THB PBEBS. Sir, —Now that the Hospital' Board is proposing to erect a new hospital, is the time not opportune to erect a building to accommodate and treat in a suitable manner those cases of nervous breakdown—owing to wovries or ill-health—which are not bad enough to be sent to Sunnyside Mental Hospital? It is time our Government considered the provision of suitable accommodation, providing the right environment and suitable treatment; including diet, for those unfortunate persons who become unbalanced and who are not insane enough to go to the receiving home—a half-way house, where the individual case can be studied by experts. There are hundreds whose minds are affected who should not be sent to Sunnyside and segregated with those poor unfortunates there. Not only is the association with them enough to send them out of their minds completely, but the treatment and attention they get (if they get any) are not conducive to their speedy recovery. Then there is the stigma they have to bear when they are discharged cured, which clings to them for the remainder of their lives. Why should they have to suffer gibes and insinuations from others, who, in many cases, may have to spend a few months themselves in the same institution. Both men and women are liable to be affected mentally during that. critical period of their lives, who, with suitable treatment in a pleasant environment, would speedily recover. There are many cases, hidden by their relatives, who dread committing them to Sunnyside until they become unmanageable, who, with proper treatment in the initial stages, would completely recover. Then there is the legal aspect, which could be remedied. Why should a person be treated as dead and his estate handed over to the Public Trustee? The whole thing is treated as though they were incurable or dead; when Hi a few months, they would recover and be as sane as the majority. All the unpleasantness could be avoided if in the initial stages proper treatment, the same as one gets in an ordinary hospital, was provided. For, after all. a derangement of the mind is very little different from an ordinary ailment of the body. The Government would be conferring an inestimable benefit upon posterity if it elected to build a home or hospital, controlled by a board similar to the Hospital Board, to care for unbalanced persons, and thereby prevent them becoming a charge on the community and filling the me/ital hospitals. Only those who have been forcibly placed in 'the mental hospitals know the stigma, slights, the insults ■ that one has to , put up with all serving to aggravate the trouble and develop an inferiority complex permanently.—Yours, etc., P INTERESTED. February 26, 1938.