Psychiatric Services

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 3

Psychiatric Services

Sir,—The Hanmer Hospital provides open home-like facilities for citizens with functional nervous disorder, who are medically recommended for individual trained attention. While the proportion of

doctors to patients is not up to the best in the United Kingdom or America, individual attention is given to over 400 new patients a year, the average stay being less than three months. In contrast, at present the Christchurch Hospital offers two hours a week for out-patient psychiatric ap-. pointments for the total population it serves. And who can take pride in the shortage of doctors caring for our brothers and sisters in the barrack buildings of the mental hospitals legacied from the last century? The low level of psychiatric services in this country is surely not due to complacency, but a general lack of knowledge of what is alreday done overseas, a lack of knowledge dismally unrelieved by this “Paul’s* epistle.—Yours, etc, JOB. April 17, 1957. Sir. —“Paul” should take care to verify his facts and his quotation; both are inaccurate. The Hanmer Hospital is comfortable but not luxurious. Certainly a patient can return —on his doctor’s recommendation. If “Paul” were suffering from tuberculosis and had been sent to hospital and discharged, would he expect to be refused re-admission on any recurrence of the disease? —Yours, etc., EX-PATIENT. April 17, 1957.

Sir,—Would your correspondent, “Paul,” answer questions concerning mental, emotional, and nervous illness? Mental hospitals care for serious cases. They cannot be expected to cope with all the others. Usually these people are unfit to live at home. General ' hospitals have their problems, overcrowding being a main factor. Though temporarily unfit, these patients do not need to take up either these beds or skilled nursing care. Admittedly Hanmer Hospital is comfortable and beautiful, and many have been helped by this, as they have rested, sorted themselves out, and used the patient care of experienced persons to speed their return to a useful life in the world. The great need of both islands is for places for these tormented (though hot physically sick) people to mark time. What does “Paul” suggest, and what, besides “fearing” the repetition of hospitals like Hanmer, is he doing about this problem?—Yours, etc., M. April 17, 1957. Sir,—Out of his own mouth your correspondent, “Paul,” is convicted of ignorance of his subject As a grateful former patient of Queen Mary Hospital, I cannot let his letter pass unchallenged. Some go there regarding it as a luxury hotel. How they gain admittance is best known to themselves and their medical advisers. Finding rules irksome, they soon depart. The patients are given any necessary medicine, rest, good food, fresh air, kindness, firmness, and, according to their fitness, light occupation. I saw little of the medical staff, but can testify that the sisters are devoted, carry heavy responsibilities, never spare themselves the hardest or most menial tasks. Having returned to and coped with fairly exacting employment, I recently visited the glaciers, making a detour to Hanmer on the return journey. The pleasure of the charge sister’s face at my air of health and returned selfconfidence was something to -remember.—Yours, etc., GRATEFUL. April 18, 1957.