A NICCARDLY DEPARTMENT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 258, 24 July 1908, Page 3

A NICCARDLY DEPARTMENT.

Sir,—Being one of thoso who find it necessary to occasionally visit friends at tho Mount View Hospital, one cannot but be forcibly, struck by the niggardliness displayed by the Department in regard to the comfort given to visitors during the winter mouths. For tho short space of time one is allowed to seo their friends, the intense cold is acutely felt, by reason of tho fact that there is no provision for a Dreplaco or any means of warming the visitors' room. Quite apart, however, from this, from the visitors' point of view, the question arises as to what is being dono for tho comfort of tho inmates, who apparently are without sufficient fires to keep them warm, as the chilled state in which the'patients are when , greeted by their friends is common comment.

Then, again, it is quite timo that steps were taken by the Govornment to bring the system in vogue here to a better standard and more in keeping with humanitarian and llp-to-date mothods of giving .those who aro lesser afflicted a better chance of regaining their normal mental balance. As it is, the i classification is ridiculous in tho extreme. In certain of the enclosures may be seen a crowd of men who havo practically just sufficient room in which ,to move about with freedom. So far as can bo judged,) nothing whatever is dono to bring the men or wonion out of thorn selves, as I understand is the case in many of tho Australian Hospitals; here, apparently, they just stand a happy-go-lucky modicum of possibility of getting back to a strengthened mental state.—l am, etc., July 22. SYMPATHISER.