Policy On Mental Hospitals “Mean”

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31412, 4 July 1967, Page 14

Policy On Mental Hospitals “Mean”

Such mean and miserable policies made mockery of everything New Zealanders believed in, said the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) yesterday, commenting on a statement by the superintendent of Sunnyside Psychiatric Hospital (Dr. E. Hall) that present economies were affecting the general standard of patient care.

“It is thoroughly bad that to save money the Minister of Health (Mr McKay) allows his department to order economies that affect the general standard of patient care, particularly when these economies are applied to psychiatric hospitals,” Mr Kirk said. Such policies were in stark contrast with the Minister’s and the department’s oftrepeated plea for rising standards. “What humbug it is to talk of raising standards, of insisting on many new qualifications and training, even to the extent of demanding that a nurse must have school certificate before she can commence her training, and then cut the funds to hospitals in

a way that patient care suffers.”

Mr Kirk said that to save money at the expense of the sick was the worst and most indefensible form of economy.

“Any government that turns to this as a means of balancing its Budget should be thrown out of office,” he said.

He had sent a telegram to the Minister protesting over the situation disclosed by Dr. Hall, and seeking an immediate end to it, Mr Kirk added.

“I am sure that even Mr H. J. Walker, M.P., Mr E. S. F. Holland, M.P., and Mr H. E. L. Pickering, M.P., should set aside party politics and join my colleagues and myself in coming out strongly against such unjust impositions,” he said.