His quiet trumpet toppled Sunnyside’s grim, grey walls

Press, 22 June 1978, Page 13

His quiet trumpet toppled Sunnyside’s grim, grey walls

By

JOHN BROWN

Thousands of New Zealanders owe their chances of a happier life to Dr Thomas Edwin Hall, medical superintendent of Sunnyside Hospital. In the last 14 years he has dragged Sunnyside Hospital into the twentieth century, and in doing so he has played a large part in changing the face of mental health in New Zealand. Born the son of a coal salesman in the small town of Monkseaton near the English industrial city of Newcastle, almost 60 years ago, Edwin Hall has never lost the quiet North country lilt in his voice. In 18 years since he arrived in New Zealand, he has grasped the essential character of the New Zealanders in a way which many people born here never succeed in doing. Edwin Hall’s contribu-

tion to the health of the nation can never be forgotten. He was the first person to take the courageous step erf breaking down the “walls” which imprisoned mental health in New Zealand. In casting out the medieval myths about mental health, he broke the pattern of mental hospitals which had been one of isolation and denial. Dr Hail reached out and found an answering public. He tapped the core in most of us which understands what it is like to suffer, which accepts the reality of mental stress. His vision of a caring and sharing community is well on the way to fruition, largely because of his humane approach to prob’ lems, his objectivity and the enormous respect held fo'r him by professional colleagues, patients and friends. As a young doctor in Newcastle in the early years of the war, and during war service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Mediterra* nean until 1946, Dr Hall could have expected a long future in some lucrative general practice. Four years as a G.P., however, were enough to make him realise the special requirements needed by the medical profession to match the mental health problems of patients. Turning his back on a comfortable future and a salary of &4000, he took his wife Barbara and three young children, to a flat in a Cambridge hospital where for three years he trained for his diploma in psychological medicine. A long way ahead of his time, Dr Hail realised that medicine must be applied to patients in a “wholistic" manner. A person’s health must be seen as a combination of the physical, mental and spiritual. This firm belief is the keystone of Dr Hall’s work. The divorce of any part from the other can only make life more difficult. But when he arrived in New Zealand to take up a senior post at Porirua Hospital in 1960, after a decade of work as a very successful psychiatrist in Britain, Dr flail found a society which had been treating mental illness as something apart, something different, something to be ashamed of. Dr Hall came to this country prepared for anything, and found that little had ever been done to bring mental health inter the lives of the country’s citizens.

As an emerging country, New Zealand did not seem to have had time to stop

and pause, to feel the needs of people in a caring manner.

Everyone recognised the sad consequences, for example, of a person injured in playing rugby; few even stopped to think of the thousands “crippled” by mental dis* orders. The grey anonymity of mental hospitals was, however, about to be swept away, but there were few people at the top who could safely have matched this tide of change. Changes in the country’s mental health system were partly the outcome of the introduction of new tranquillising drugs, partly the result of a change in social attitudes to the less fortunate and partly the result of the dedication of people like Edwin Hall. But when he came to Christchurch as head of Sunnyside Hospital in 1964, Dr Hall could have been excused if he had thought he had somehow stepped back into Victorian times. Even street maps referred to “mental asylum.” Sunnyside was the butt of cruel jokes about mentally ill people. The ethic of the strong, fit, beer-swilling Kiwi still ruled the roost. The idea that a community had anything but a financial responsibility for mentally ill people still clung to most of us.

Until 1964 Sunnyside Hospital had been the mirror of our social conscience — a blind neglect of the responsibility we all share for each other. Surrounded by tall trees and forbidding walls, it was a closed institution. Fences were topped with barbed wire. It looked like some awful mistake from the past. While the city’s life rushed past on ' Lincoln and Annex Roads, the 1040 patients of Sunnyside pursued a dreary, grey existence. One casual observer in the Hah family during those early days at Sunnyside was Barbara Hall as she took her early morning stroll through the forbidding grounds of the in* stitution. With her dog Wanda —- a Bassett Hound which was. one of the first to be introduced to this country —- Mrs Hall did her best to bring a little of the “outside” into the institution. The first major change, she remembers now, was the great day, about six months after the Halls arrived, when the fences around many of the wards were ripped down by staff and patients. Even 'this act was symbolic of a brighter future. Staff and patients working

together was unheard of tdecade before. Male and female staff and patients had been strictly separated in a way which would have done credit to the strictest headmistress of a Victorian boarding school. With the subtle integration of male and female nursing staff, the removal of the large trees facing Lincoln Road and the demolition of the high fence which “protected” the community from Sunnyside.Dr Hall started the process of change.

But he was no new broom. If he had swept clean he would have destroyed a goodwill towards him which has always been an essential part of his success.

Some say Edwin Hall arrived at Sunnyside at the right time. Others, more realistic, believe that he was also the right man for that time. A shrewd tactitian, he quickly realised that the gradual opening of Sunnyside to the outside world, and the movement of Sunnyside into that world, must be “sold” to those people who would make it

■possible — nurses, medical staff and patients. By establishing an unpressurised common base with his colleagues, Edwin Hall achieved a team approach to the integration of the male and female sections of the hospital, and in turn the bringing together of the community and the hospital.

For decades drab lines of shuffling patients had been brought from their wards by staff to the main hall at Sunnyside for visiting hours. Following a system more appropriate to the country’s prisons, hundreds of patients and visitors competed for some degree of intimacy in the huge hall. Edwin Hall and his staff changed all that. The wards were opened to visitors. The times of visiting were “liberalised.” People began to come in regu’ larly from “outside.” Some seriously wondered where the '“sick” pec/ple were. Old fears began to vanish as Sunnyside became part of the community. All this happened gradu* ally, without pressures, without rancour. Sunnyside became the first psychiatric institution to be “opened up.” It soon became one of the first to be recognised as a major teaching hospital for psychological medicine. In the latter move Dr Hall was a catalyst. He

took hold of the potential in all his staff and nurtured it until those who wished to be trained for better positions, were given every encouragement to do so. Six people gained their overseas diplomas in psychological medicine from Sunnyside as a result. Many others can now call themselve strained, because

of Dr Hall’s encouragement. The hospital has only 14 per cent of its staff untrained compared to a national average of 45 per cent.

The record which Sunnyside Hospital holds for good staff relation’ ships over the past 14 years is a direct result of Edwin Hall’s firm belief that the total contribution to any effort is always greater than the individual. The co-operative community he has helped to build at Sunnyside is the rejection of his integrity, his personal warmth, and his leadership. To legal and political figures, to the medical profession and to patient groups, within the hospital and in the community, Dr Hall has given much of himself, always recognising however that the “other bloke’s point of view” has equal rights with his own. Dr Hall’s calm ability to get close to people, to put them at their ease, is part of the reason that he knows and remembers so many of his patients. He always insists on sending a personal letter of condolence to the relatives of any who die while patients of Sunnyside. He has never been a “memo man” — he prefers to make a personal call to tidy up professional matters. In a hospi-

tai which has operating costs of SBM a year, a staff of 803, 650 inpatients and 600 outpatients, it might be expected that he would be merely a figurehead. But none Of the staff or patients would accept that description of him.

While all his staff know that “the boss” will help them with his goodhumoured commonsense attitude to life, they are always well aware that he is the boss. Whether he was down behind the potting shed discussing his weekly bets on the trots with the head gardener, or leading a medical conference on the treatment of alcoholics, Edwin Hall could always be relied upon to give the “right” answers — though he will be first to admit that his little flings on the trots could never be absolutely relied on. No prima donna in medical politics, Edwin Hall has, however, pushed through a series of changes that many medical! leaders of today would find hard to emulate without a good deal of fuss and bother. The Mahu Clinic for the rehabilitation of alcoholics, working with the patient as an integral part of the therapeutic team, owes much to Edwin Hall’s foresight and encouragement. Mahu has a unique form of “self government” where residents run the unit from late afternoon to the next morning. In encouraging this system. Edwin Hall is carrying through the belief that responsibility must be given if it is to become expected. ' The adolescent unit, which caters for disturbed children, is a reflection of his longtime work with the Child Health Clinic and his dogged determination to convince successive New Zealand govern-

ments that this country must have more child psy* chiatrists.

In setting up the group housing scheme. Dr Hall recognised the importance that must be attached to assessment and rehabilitation of patients. Many people who in the past might have spent the rest of their lives in psychiatric institutions are now living happily and independently in the community as a result of this u'ork. He set aside one ward at the hospital to assess and rehabilitate the people, who now number more than 60, living in homes rented from the hosoital.

Once patients were thrown on their own devices when they left Sunnyside after treatment. Now, due once again to the sharing community ideal of Sunnyside, all patients are followed un after discharge. Domiciliary staff also give assistance in the community. Some who have a special regard for Edwin Hall are what he calls, “the front line troops.” These people, the nurses who staff Sunnyside, have a stronger voice than is given to nurses in other psychiatric institutions. “It is a wise psychiatrist who listens to a wise charge nurse,” Dr Hall believes.

Others who have a special regard for Dr Hal! are the occupational therapists. Their department was Set up by Dr Hall and is an integral part of the treatment programme. Once patients might have spent months doing nothing. Now they are encouraged to take an interest in some creative activity. In line with his determination to see Sunnyside permanently established as part of the community, Dr Hall has encouraged staff to become involved in outside consultancy work. It is consistent with this

out ward-looking attitude too that he never tries to "muzzle” any staff who are approached by journalists. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he believes that what happens in the hospital is part of the community and if it becomes news, then nothing but good can eventually come of it. This attitude could also be a clear reflection of just how well he knows and understands his staff and the hospital. Even as he approaches retirement with his wife, three children. Richard, Anrie and Perry, seven grandchildren and his constant companion “Cassie” the dog, Dr Hall is still concerned about mental health and the community. He said last week that one of the things that truly worries him are the growing numbers of people who have no moti vation, no attitudes and no aims. “We all face such danger when we have no attitudes about things. If we do not have 'attitudes' then there is a vacuum into which negativism can creep,” he said. Dr Hall’s hope for al! people is that they will recognise that negativism is related to our inability to see ourselves in relation to others. Edwin Hall has helped many by his dedication and resolve to escape the negative “vacuum." His legacy is the increasing ability of the community to accept and understand the “people” and not primarily the "patients” in the mental health field None of us are immune from mental illness. It is to dedicated and kindly men like Edwin Hall that we owe thanks that New Zealand is slowly catching up with the rest of the world in this field. Thousands will be saved much pain and suffering because of him.