Reform Of U.S. Mental Care

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30050, 7 February 1963, Page 20

Reform Of U.S. Mental Care

(W.Z.P.A -Reuter —Copyright;

WASHINGTON, February 5.

President Kennedy today unveiled a “bold new programme” to improve mental institutions throughout the United States which would cost 31,300,000 dollars in its first year.

He said it could reduce tihe niumiber of patients now in hospitals by 50 per cent, or more “wntiiin a decade or tiwo,” the Associated Press reported. “It is imperative that the quality of care in existing State mental institutions be improved,” the President said in a message to Congross. Tolerated Too Long “This situation has been tolerated for far too long. It has troubled our national conscience—bat only as a problem unpleasant to mention, easy to postpone and despairing of solution.” The two major proposals in Mr Kennedy’s message were for a change from "custodial” institutions to modern community centres for mental patients, and for a new approach to problems of mental retardation which, he said, often resulted from inadequate pre-natal care. “The time has come for a bold, new approach,” the President said. “New medical, scientific and social tools and insights are now available. ...” Community mental health centres would provide diagnosis, care, rehaibilittaiion and emergency services and would aim at prevention as well as treatment in "a more cordial atmosphere.” Using the latest drugs and tranquillisers deevloped for

mental patients, treatment could be completed in weeks or months, rather than years, Mir Kennedy said. The problem of mental retardation had been “too long neglected,” the President said. Children “It strikes our most precious asset—children,” he said. “Each year sees an estimated 126,000 new cases. It hits more often at the under-privileged, or, and most often of all, in city tenements and rural slums Where there are heavy concentrations of families with poor education and low income. ...” Statistics pointed to a “direct relationship between lack of pre-natal care and mental rettardation,” and a considerable increase In prenatal care programmes was needed, he said.