MENTAL CASES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 64, 17 March 1927, Page 10

MENTAL CASES

URBAN INSTITUTIONS

PROTEST FROfi/i MEL3G3

"DESTROYING OUR. ONE AG3ZT' The principle of tiic csi^blic;--ment of mental "institutions in r.:-l:.-.:i areas was argued by a forge i-cTjut:-----tion from Nelson which wr.itcl t;i tb-» Minister of Heaith tsi-dav. T'lo «;>:);■:;- ---ers protested pcrtictilcriy .t-ainst u:o proposal to supplement tin; p;-eso;il; institution for mentally afflicted men :-t Stoke by the addition of villas for the accommodation of women gimi'arJv sirfected. _ Mr.'H. Atmnrc, M-.P. for Nelson, who introduced the deputation, said tl-ojv could not bn accused of want of sympathy with the inmates of the institutions. He referred to the beautios of Stoke and to the fact -that the Cawthron Institute would soon be building there. There had been instants m which mental institutions had been removed from centres of population to districts which were less settled. A big blow would be struck to Stoko if the Government carried out its intentions. He assured the Minister that the residents felt strongly in the matter. Mr. T. Neale, ex^chairman of the Nelson Hospital Board, said the district in which it was proposed to' carry out the work was the most promising residential suburb of Nelson, and would be damaged for ever. Its beauty was its one asset. '' If you carry out your proposal," he said, "you will bring to the slaughter our one ewe lamb. . . . It will be a byword with every traveller that Stoke is a second Porirua, another Seacliff, or Avondale. They will think of Nelson as being notable for one of the large asylums of the Dominion, and against that we are going to fight." They pleaded with Mr. Young to reconsider tho action that was proposed. SOME OTHEE PLACE. Several other speakers further statj ed the objections of the residents. Surelv i suggested the Mayor of Nelson (Mr. W. Lock) the Department could find" some better place for the institution. I than in a large residential area, which might soon became a city. Why. should Stoke, of all places, be made a dumping ground! Mr. W. Moffatt, representing the Progress League, said that with distinct [ success much money had been spent in. I advertising Nelson and inducing people Ito go there. The. Government should j offset against its proposed expenditure j of £33,000 the valuable gifts to the nation in the district—about a quarter of j a million sterling.

lii reply, the Minister (the Hon. J. A. Young) spoke at some length upon., the more humane methods now being adopted in the treatment of mental cases' The three new villas that were to be erected, he said, would be built on property which had been purchased by the Government specially for the nurpose of developing the new scheme. * None of tho buildings would be unsightly, and exactly the same policy was being pursued elsewhere in the Dominion. He pointed out that none of the patients were of the refractory type. Eight in the centre of Nelson a mental'institution had been in existence for years, and he had never heard any protest against that. When the Government's policy was carried out to its fullest extent it was proposed to have, not more thaii 600 patients at the Nelson institutions. He denied emphatically that it was proposed to transfer half the population of the mental institutions to Nelson, as had been suggested, and to make the district a dumping ground. It was not a matter of £.s.d but of doing what he considered the right thing—of giving the patients the advantage of the best climatic conditions; they were entitled to as good conditions in that respect as a Bishop or a Prime Minister. Those, said the Minister, were the sole considerations that actuated him. He would discuss th« matter with the . departmental officers ■' but the policy laid down must be pursued whether protestations came from Nelson, Wellington, Auckland, or any. where else.

At the conclusion of the Minister's reply Mr. Atmore objected to his last sentence, and pointed ,out that the members of the deputation were fully m accord with the humanitarian proposals of the Department, and were quite in sympathy with the Minister* views. . .