OUR COMMON FATE

Evening Star, Issue 19722, 24 November 1927, Page 11

OUR COMMON FATE

INFIRMITY OF OLB AGE i THE ASYLUM NO PLACE FOR THEM.. [Special to tub ‘Stab,’] CHIUSTCHIJKCH; November 23. The question of the committal of aged people to mental hospitals camo before the North Canterbury Hospital Hoard ( to-dny in an interesting report bv Hr Gray, Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, forwarded by Hr Valiutiue, Hi-rcetor-Gencral of .Health. “ Nobody can deny,” Hr Gray states, “ that many aged people become irntable and restless, degraded in habits, and irresponsible and difficult to such a degree that they require care m a mental hospital. It would bo unfair to ask .hospital boards to treat such cases in hospitals or in old people’s homes. On the I 'Other -hand, for many years past many old people, who are merely suffering from physiological or normal ,senile decay, have been committed to mental hospitals simply because they are no longer able to look alter themselves. These people are not of unsound mind; their mental decay is exactly what must inevitably happen to cadi of us if wo live to a great age. As these people are not of unsound mind, and as no other agency would undertake their care, we embodied m a clause iu the Mental Detectives Act a class ‘mentally infirm’—being m mental infirmity arising from age or the decay of their faculties,- renderingthem incapable of managing themselves or their affairs. This practically legal ised what had long been a wrong practice—namely', tho reception of old people into mental hospitals. The Inspec-tor-General of Mental Hospitals docs not desire to rid his department of any responsibility in the matter of caring lor cases of insanity occurring amongst tho aged, but bo does bold that it is wrong on every ground to consign old identities to an asylum merely because of senile decay.” Hr Gray stated that be would bo very glad if the members of the North Canterbury Board arranged with Hr M'Killop, at Sunnyside Mental Hospital, to interview some of the cases under discussion, in order that tho members should satisfy themselves as to the facts. The report was referred to the Benevolent Committee.