MENTAL PATIENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 September 1944, Page 3

MENTAL PATIENTS

IMP R O V'E’D NU USING PR OVISI ON

WELLINGTON, September 13. Moving the second reading of the Nurses and Midwives Registration Amendment Bill when the House resumed at 7.30 p.m., Mr. Nordmcycr said the Bill would considerably improve the status of mental or psychiatric nurses by bringing them within the control of the Nurses and Midwives’ Registration Board. ■ : Dealing with the clause which requires hospital boards to employ only registered psychiatric nurses for psychiatric nursing, Mr. Nordmeyer said that the Dunedin and Wellington Public Hospitals already had nurses for psychiatric wards and probably other large hospitals, particularly Auckland and , Christchurch, would soon require them. It wasj desirable that .nurses in such wards j should be fully trained and qualified. ! In some countries every nurse do-; lug general training was required to spend a short portion of her course as j a nurse in a mental institution. Thatj might not be necessary or desirable here, but certainly it was desirable that a number of nurses should have < dual training so that those undertak- ’ ing nursing as a career, particularlyi ward sisters, should have knowledge of mental nursing. I Mr. Nordmeyer said that the hr rm i which had been clone by ill-founded; statements, particularly by counsel' at Manpower hearings, had led to the alienation of many young woi ien who would otherwise have en.tc reel; the nursing profession. Work in mental hospitals was in many re-! speeds on a parallel with work in' public hospitals. It was true tha; in some cases the hospitals were old . nd not suitable for the work, but t ey were being replaced as fast as p >ssible by modern villas. Cabinet Iqd approved of a new institution at Marton which would eventually h;.ve 1000 beds. HOMES FOR AGED. Mr. McCombs mentioned fat there were over 8000 patients in N w Zealand mental hospitals. Many of them could well be provided for in homes for the aged. They went to a mental hospital under pres- nt conditions through lack of bet'.er facilities for the care of them. Mr ny aged people in mental hospitals we re not really mental patients, but they did need comfort, care and expert nursing.

Mr. Fraser said that mental illness should be looked upon like physical illness and there should be no odium attached to a person because his nerves had broken down or because his brain was impaired by injury or other causes. Once that idea was grasped there would be no more of the preposterous statements that had been made by persons, including a church dignitary, regarding conditions in mental hospitals. Responsible persons should not make such' harmful statements when there were so many opportunities for them to find out the true state of affairs. Mr. Nordmeyer, replying to the debate, said regarding Mr. McCombs’ suggestion, he had hopes that one camp in the North Island and one in the South Island could be made available for the purpose of providing accommodation for aged people whose health made them unsuitable for the ordinary old people’s home, but who were not necessary certifiable as mental patients. The provision of a place for such people would relieve them and their relations of the unjust stigma of being sent to a mental hospital. The Bill was only one of the steps it was proposed to take to raise the status and improve the working conditions of ■ mental nurses.

The Bill went through the committee stages without debate and was passed. The House returned to the discussion of answers to questions until the adjournment at 10.30 p.m.