PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28685, 8 September 1958, Page 12

PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES

N.Z.* Shortage Of Doctors

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Sept. 7.

At least 90 psychiatrists are needed now if New Zealand psychiatric services ar? to approach generally accepted standards of practice, according to Dr. Wallace Ironside, senior lecturer in charge of the Department of Psychiatry at the Otago Medical School. Dr. Ironside addressed the annual meeting of the New Zealand branch of the Australasian Association of Psychiatrists which was held at the week-end in Auckland.

Psychiatrists were badly needed in mental and general hospitals and in private practice, he said. Because of a world-wide shortage, he did not believe that enough men could be recruited from overseas to fill thp gap. Financing the .training of New Zealand, doctors at post-graduate centres overseas might partly solve the problem; but ultimately psychiatrists would have to be trained in New Zealand, he said. Short courses of training in psychiatry should be provided for interested doctors in other branches of medical practice. He said it was now known that 30 to 40 per cent, of persons who became ill were suffering from psychiatric disorders. Most of these patients should, he added; be treated by their family doctors.