CONDITIONS AT PORIRUA

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 52, 30 August 1945, Page 8

CONDITIONS AT PORIRUA

A suggestion that a board similar to the Hospital Board be set up to assist the Minister in Charge of Mental Hospitals and the Mental Hospitals Department in the interests of the inmates of Porirua Hospital was referred to in the House of Representatives last evening by Mr. C. M. Bowden (National, Wellington West), who had criticised unsatisfactory conditions at the hospital. He emphasised that the doctors, nurses, and attendants were giving service of the highest quality and were doing more than could humanly be expected of them. He appreciated, he said, that earthquake damage had caused overcrowding, but there was a dire shortage of staff. Visitors had to see patients in rooms that were entirely unsuitable, , inmates were restricted in ' their exercise because there were not enough attendants to accompany them, and there was a lack of games, also attributable to the shortage of staff. Some of the inmates, he was informed, were engaged in work round the buildings, but he understood they received no payment. He would suggest that they should be allowed pocket money, as if they had no friends they, could not get extra comforts. There were no proper facilities for segregating servicemen—there were 50 to 60 of them —according to the degree of their disability, although they were apart from civilians. Mr. Bowden also suggested that the special buses for visitors should introduce concession tickets instead of charging 3s return. A six-trip railways ticket, he said, could be bought for 4s 5d —less than half the cost of the bus fare.