CAREFUL INQUIRY URGED

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 11

CAREFUL INQUIRY URGED

Mental Hospital Questions MINISTER’S REPLY TO MEMBER A printed circular making charges a-ainst the administration of the Sunnyside Mental Hospital, Christchurch, was again mentioned in the House of Representatives yesterday, when the Minister of Health, Hon. I*. Fraser, made a long statement in reply to a question asked about tlm matter some days ago by Mr. It. A. Wright (Independent Wellington Suburbs). The circular alleged, in one statement it contained, that a patient had been refused an X-ray examination when he was in need of one, although his relatives were willing to defray the cost. Mr. Wright asked whether, if the statement were untrue, the Minister would instruct the medical superintendent of the institution to take legal action.

In his reply, which was made specially to avoid holding the matter over until the next session, the Minister outlined the facts as they affected the patient mentioned in the circular. That patient was admitted to Sunnyside in ■November, 1933, suffering from delusions. Medical evidence left no. room for doubt, the Minister said, that the patient was suffering from a very serious mental breakdown.. Un admission the patient was carefully examined. It was not correct, as alleged in the circular, that the medical superintendent declined to allow an X-ray examination. Nor was it correct, the Minister added, to say that the authorities at Sunnyside had not diagnosed the case, as the patient had been the subject of repeated and careful examinations by the medical staff at Sunnyside, who had done all that they could for him

Mr. Fraser said that the best answers to the allegations in the circular were in a letter addressed to the superintendent at Sunnyside by the wife of the patient this month, iu which site indicated that she bad had no knowledge of the charges and did not want to be associated witli them. She stated as well that an X-ray examination had never been refused.

’.file question of legal action, tlie Minister said, was a matter for tlie medical superintendent himself, and no doubt would receive consideration commensurate with tlie reliability and stability of the person or persons responsible for the cireula'r. “I want to assure the House that when complaints relating to inmates of the mental hospitals are received by members, I will be pleased to place at their disposal - all the information that is available,” said Mr. Fraser, “in this particular case the member for Christchurch South, Mr. E. J. Howard, had the relative files placed at his disposal, as he considered it advisable in the interests of all concerned, and particularly of the relatives of the patient, to make full investigations before taking steps which would involve painful publicity. While members must rightly and inevitably decide for themselves the steps they consider necessary in the public interest and iu the interests of those mainly concerned, I would suggest that careful inquiry precedent to questions in the House about unfortunate pqtients in mental hospitals would be advisable. - ’