OBSERVATION WARDS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 86, 8 October 1929, Page 11

OBSERVATION WARDS

INCIPIENT MENTAL CASES

MINISTER APPROVES IDEA

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") CHBISTCHTJECH, This Day. The provision of observation wards at public hospitals fdr incipient cases of mental trouble was brought before the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, yesterday by a deputation from tho Women's Christian Temperance Union, comprising Mrs. T. B. Taylor and Miss C. Henderson. Press representatives were not admitted, but Miss Henderson told the reporters at the conclusion1 of. the "proceedings that the Minister was in favour of the provision of observation wards.

Later Mr. Stallworthy said he was quite in accord with the idea. He referred to the fact that clinics had been established, 'and people could now go there for advice. The scheme must be further developed. It was not always possible to diagnose a' ease treated merely as an outdoor patient-The- proposal was to provide a four or six-bed ward definitely for observing incipient mental eases over a period sufficiently long to arrive at a reliable diagnosis. "It has been claimed," said the Minister, "that tho scheme is a surreptitious move to swing mental cases within the care of hospital boards. Such is not the intention at all. For that ; matter, it would be a clever man who ■would discriminate in every case what :is mental and what is physical trouble. It is a move to check a good deal of nervous ill-health which, if not cheeked, would lead to serious trouble, probably mental. I think that every hospital board should fall into line with this scheme, and then we will have the development we require." Mr. Stallworthy stated Jthat the matter had been brought before the Auckland Board and turned down, but he hoped that that board's decision would be reconsidered. ■