PRISONERS AT SANATORIUM

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27307, 25 March 1954, Page 12

PRISONERS AT SANATORIUM

HOSPITAL BOARD COMPLAINS

REQUEST FOR DETENTION WARDS

Prisoners from Paparua admitted to the Cashmere Sanatorium as patients are causing such concern to the North Canterbury Hospital Board that it will complain to the Minister of Justice (Mr T. C. Webb), ask the Minister of Health (Mr J. R. Marshall) to provide detention wards, seek the personal attention of the Prime Minister (Mr Holland), and possibly demand warder attendance on any such patients in the meantime. When the public health committee reported on the problem yesterday, the chairman of the committee (Mr P. Stanley Foster,) said that the staff were terrified. There had been instances of such men roving the wards and. resisting restraint, and some cases of violence. ‘‘Why not prosecute and bring the matter to a head?” asked Mrs T. Green. Mr J. J. Brownlee asked whether a legal opinion had been obtained on the board’s right®. The secretary (Mr A. Prentice) said the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. D. P. Kennedy) had advised that there were apparently no special provisions for such a situation. When the Tuberculosis Act was first drafted, there had been provision for places of detention for such patients, said Miss M. B. Howard, M.P. Unfortunately, when she was Minister of Health, she was prevailed on to drop this idea. ‘‘There is no other way out,” Miss Howard said. “You can’t leave them in gaol, endangering other prisoners, and you can’t leave them in our institutions uncontrolled. I think the present Government would be prepared to establish detention wards, say, one in each island, in view of this evidence.”

The board went into committee for further discussions.