MENTAL CASES

Evening Star, Issue 18717, 20 August 1924, Page 10

MENTAL CASES

PROBLEM OF DECISION. POSSIBLE INCARCERATION OF SANE. Auckland Case Discussed. Minister on Borderline Institutions. [From Otjb Parliamentary Eepoetee.]

WELLINGTON, August 19. Tltfl administration of mental hospitals ms keenly discussed in the House to-day when the annual report of the department was submitted, some members showing anxiety regarding the precautions which ■ should be taken to prevent the incarceration of sane persons. Point was given to their remarks by the Auckland ■Supreme Court case reported this week. Mr Wilford, Leader of the Opposition, opened the discussion by stating that very disquieting reports had come to him in regard to accommodation in mental hospitals. It was the duty of _ the Government to provide accommodation, and also facilities for escape in case of fire. He understood that in one institution shakedowns were used in corridors. It was often difficult to control sane people in case of fire, and it must be more dangerous with mental hospital patients it they were overcrowded. Ho hoped that the Minister would get a comprehensive report on these aspects, and also' consider a great extension of agricultural work by mental patients. It would give cheaper vegetables to the working people, and render the institutions more self-support-ing. A good many patients would be delighted to secure open-air occupation. °Mr Lysnar (Gisborne) stressed the need for special institutions for_ border-line cases. Where a patient was in a hospital, and there was doubt over the wisdom of his discharge, these halfway houses would bo valuable. A glaring case had just arisen in Auckland, where a man was actually kept in an asylum who, it was admitted by tic superintendent, ought not to have been there. Sir Maui Poraare: You are wrong! Mr Lysnar: “Ho kept him there, though be acknowledged he should not he there. Why should there bo a superintendent in a mental hospital who removes responsibility from his own shoulders to the Supreme Court. It is wrong.” Mr Lysnar added that he had frequently complained of men and women being detained who should not be in asylums, and he had been instrumental in getting some out. In a recent case he was successful with the aid and sympathy of the, superintendent in charge. The difficulty was that if a man was released, and something went wrong, the public would blame the superintendent, who would therefor® not take the responsibility. Sir Maui Pomare: Why should he? Mr Lysnar declared that it needed no expert to tell if a man was wrong. (Laughter.) If members who laughed paid some personal attention to these cases they would find that he was correct.