TELEGRAMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 52, 29 August 1913, Page 2

TELEGRAMS.

r>RESS ASSOCIATION} DELIRIUM TREMENS PATIENTS MAGISTERIAL ATTITUDE. CHRISTCHURCH, 28th August. "Over and over again I have said that it is a most improper thing to send men suffering from delirium tremens to hospital. It is unfair to the rest of the patients, unfair to the nurses, and unfair to the attendants." Thus Mr. H. W. Bishop, S.M., protested at the Magistrate's Court to-day against the impression which, he 6aid, was a general one, that he had been responsible for remanding a certain delirium tremens case to th 6 hospital. -" A j-nagistrate gets the blame for everything/ continued his Worship. "The man was ,never remanded by me. Although a magistrate, if he thinks it is proper, has the power to do it, I have never thought it proper." Mr. Bishop proceeded to quote the Act, which gave power to the Bench to remand cases to ' hospital for medical treatment, and contended that it was clearly the duty of the authorities to provide a suitable place for the reception of^such cases. , •'To my knowledge," Mr. Bishop concluded, " I have never sent a delirium tremens case to the hospital. If a patient, on the recommendation and by the authority of the police doctor, is sent to the hospital, the authorities could refuse to tske him.'* Senior-Sergeant -Mathieson : What are 'we to do? The Magistrate: Get him examined as a mental defective and sent to the asylum. \A delirium tremens patient certainly is a mental defective for the time being, temporarily or permanently." The report, of Mr. Bishop's remarks was submitted to the Hdspit&l Board tc-day. The board passed a vote of thanks to Mt. Bishop for his attitude in the matter, and expressed regret that it had unwittingly implied that the case referred to had beeh admitted on his order.