AFFLICTED SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 88, 13 April 1923, Page 3

AFFLICTED SOLDIERS

! AN APPEAL FOE MENTAL CASES. ! (IT. miCRAPI.—fHCUt, TO 111 POIT.) j AUCKLAND, This Day. ' The position of returned soldiers, who are patients at the Auckland Mental Hospital, was referred to by Mr. F. M. Cpx, general secretary of the Auckland Returned Soldiers' Association. Mr. Cox said there were over 300 men in the mii stitution, but the Defence Department did not know how many were departmental cases. All the men were under the control of the mental hospital authorities, and no Defence Department doctor ever visited them to see if any of the men had made an improvement. The association contended that several of these men had so much improved that they were fit to be discharged. The position waß a very unfair one for these men. "I can give the names of five to ten men," saicf Mr. Cox, "who, we maintain, are fit to leave the institution. ' These men have to remain there since they ore under absolute control of the Mental Hospitals Department, arjd are raver I visited by a Defence Department doctor. Every other Wednesday Igo but to the mental hospital and take cigarette* and 'tobacco for them. That job is the hardest I have in connection with my position as secretary of the association. As soon as I arrive there, men get on to me, a*king me to make efforts to allow them to come out." I The matter was also considered at a meeting of the disabled returned soldiers, held on Tuesday, when it was decided to recommend the Returned Soldiers' Association to urge the Government to recognise its responsibilities with regard to returned soldier mental oases. It was also decided to ask that arrangements be made for the men to be visited once a month by a Defence Department doctor.