Escapes highlight urgent need

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 1

Escapes highlight urgent need

PA Wellington An urgent need existed for a new secure facility for disturbed offenders, said the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, at a press conference yesterday. Dr Bassett’s comments came after further cases of patients absconding from Oakley Hospital in Auckland.

“There may well have to be a new secure facility; it is hard to see how we can make do without new facilities,” he said. The previous Government had discussed where and when a new facility could be built, and who would pay, he said. But there had been some “buck-passing” between Government departments.' Dr Bassett said that the Health and Justice Departments would meet the Auckland Hospital Board to discuss the need for a new facility. He was unable to say when such a facility could be built.

For now, security at Oakley Hospital would be tightened, even if it meant the Government’s providing

money to do so, he said. The former Minister of Justice, Mr J. K. McLay, said yesterday that the Government had to take immediate steps to improve security at Oakley. The National Government had received the report of a working party on psychiatrically disturbed offenders.

“That report should now be available and the Government should be in a position to make an early decision,” he said. Security at Oakley would be tightened after the latest two escapes, said the Auckland Hospital Board’s chairman, Dr Frank Rutter, yesterday. Outings for patients would be restricted and escorts strengthened, he said.

But, the board would not return to the days before the 1982 Committee of Inquiry when patients were drugged to stop them straying. If the public wanted a more custodial atmosphere for Oakley patients, the board and the Health and Justice Departments had to take note of that and take steps to provide a secure unit, he said.

Dr Rutter said that an “error of judgment” caused the delay of several hours in the police being notified that two patients had gone missing from an escorted party last Friday. The chief nurse, Miss Anne Murphy, said that staff had problems deciding if the patients were in category A or B — if they were in the first group they were dangerous to themselves or the public and the police had to be informed.