Mental Patients

Press, Volume C, Issue 29436, 11 February 1961, Page 3

Mental Patients

Sir, —The laissez-faire attitude of past governments to mental patients and the callous treatment of them by the public is a blemish on the escutcheon of New Zealand. It is deplorable to see so many able-bodied men penned up in these antiquated institutions in which they receive absolutely no curative treatment for their mental complaints. What is the medical profession doing about it? Absolutely nothing. The more patients there are, the better for their pockets, and the more secure they are in their jobs, so it would appear. Psychiatry may be of some help, but in what Freud, the father of it. said (“to remove a neurosis would involve treatment of one hour a day. five days a week for a period of up to five years”) I have my doubts. Work and a small payment for it would revive hope in many instances.— Yours, etc., OUTSIDE LOOKING IN. Jan. 30. 1961. [The Director of the Mental Health Division of the Department of Health replies: "More than half the persons admitted to New Zealand mental hospitals come voluntarily in search of treatment. More than 83 per cent, of patients admitted are discharged within one year, and 57 per cent, within three months. The value of suitable occupation for patients is fully appreciated in the division's hospitals, and the services of occupational therapists and social workers are available to ensure that the opportunities for rehabilitation through suitable employment are taken at the earliest possible moment in the patient's recovery. While there is rightly considerable emphasis on the importance of occupation and employment within the total rehabilitation programme of the hospital, it would be a mistake to suppose that the extremely complex problems of mental illness are susceptible to the simple solution of providing appropriate employment in the individual case and no other measures ”!