‘Too many’ retarded held in hospitals
PA • Wellington Too many mentally retarded children were in New .Zealand hospitals, the president of the Society for the Intellectually Handicapped (Dr R. T. Caseley) has said; . Compared with Britain, New Zealand had three times as many mentally retarded children still in institutions: 28.5. per 100,000 of population compared with nine per 100,000 in Britain, he told the .society’s annual conference in Napier. It was now recognised that most intellectually handicapped people had no major disability and were in good general -health, he said. This had led to a change in emphasis from custodial, institutional care to an educational, community-based service. '
Statistics; from. Britain showed a significant reduction in 1976 in the number of children aged under 15 in hospital for the retarded. But in New Zealand Health Department figures showed that 774 children in this age group were classified as mentally retarded in hospital.’ “These figures indicate that there are too many children in hospitals in this country and we must continue to work for better and more comprehensive communitybased services,” said Dr Caseley. He welcomed an important change in the public’s attitude: that intellectually handicapped people should no longer be “put away” and forgotten but their needs recognised and their rights respected. In spite of its economic
difficulties the society had to continue developing its community-based services. The needs in the larger population centres were particularly pressing. Dr Caseley listed five goals for the 1980 s in the development of the society’s services: early support and intervention programmes; effective, individualised, preschool programmes for young intellectually handicapped children; a variety’of residential facilities, specialcare units, hostels, family homes, independent living units, and foster programmes; varied workshop and training-centre programmes with work, continuing education, social, and recreational activities; and increasing ability to monitor and thereby improve the quality of services,
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Press, 19 April 1980, Page 12
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305‘Too many’ retarded held in hospitals Press, 19 April 1980, Page 12
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