MENTAL DEFECTIVES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 300, 19 September 1928, Page 13

MENTAL DEFECTIVES

THE BILL AMENDED

MAIN PROVISIONS RETAINED

NEW REGISTRATION PROCEDURE

Retention of tile provisions for the registration, segregation and sterilisation of the mentally unsound has resulted from the consideration the Health Committee of the House of Representatives has given the Mental Defectives Amendment Bill. A different procedure is, however, proposed in regard to registration. and a proviso has been added to the clauses governing sterilisation.

The Bill, as introduced, sought to add a seventh class to the list of mental defectives, and the committee has amended the definition of this new class to read : “Persons socially defective —that is, persons who suffer from mental deficiency, associated with anti-social conduct, aud who by reason of such mental deficiency and conduct require supervision for their own protection or in the public interest.”

Psychological clinics.

By an alteration in the suggested personnel of the board to be established to supervise certain classes of mental defectives, the proposal to allow recognised social organisations to recommend an appointee is dropped. To the func-

tions of the board has been added the duty of providing for the establishment and conduct of psychological clinics, which are to be under the immediate direction of qualified psychiatrists.

The functions of these clinics are made clear by the amendments the committee has made to the clauses dealing with registration. The chairman of the Registration Board is to be the DirectorGeneral of Mental Hospitals, to whom are to be submitted returns by the Directors of Education and the Control-ler-General of Prisons. Upon receipt of these particulars the chairman, according to the amendments suggested by the committee, is to require each case to be investigated by the psychological clinics, which will also investigate the cases in respect to which representations have been received by the chairman from reputable sources. The psychiatrists will report to the chairman whether the persons concerned are mentally defective, and are properly classifiable as idiot., imbecile, feeble-minded, epileptic, or socially defective. The chairman will then submit the particulars to the board. It is left to the chairman to furnish the board with particulars of any person who is or has. at any time been an inmate of an institution and whose name in his opinion should be entered on the register. Retardate Children. In the Bill as introduced it was proposed that the Director of Education, anion other things, should make a return to the chairman, giving the names of children whose comparative educational development was retarded to the extent of two years or more. The committee has raised the minimum period of retardation to three years. The board is charged to take into consideration every ease that is brought before it by the chairman in the manner outlined, and to hold what inquiry it considers necessary. It is now further provided that the decision of the majority of the members that a name be entered on the register shall not be given effect to unless, it is concurred in by the three members who are registered medical, practitioners. '

Concerning appeals from the decisions of the board, it is now proposed flint following notification objection may be given in writing, and where objection is made registration is not to be given effect to