MENTAL PATIENTS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 18 December 1925, Page 7

MENTAL PATIENTS.

GENERAL HOSPITAL TREATMENT. SPECIAL ROOMS ADVOCATED. {jsi telegraph —press association.) DUNEDIN, Dec. 18. In support of his contention that special rooms should be provided at Du edin Hospital for mental patients, hr. Falconer, medical superintendent, tuinished an elaborate report to the Hospital Board, which referred it to, a committee and the honorary medical staff for a report. , Dr. Falconer stated that there was no good medical ground why a patient with a mental disorder should not go to a general hospital and he admitted to the physicatric ward unless his condition was disturbing to other patients/ To have all mental patients sent to a hospital some distance from a general hospital was to continue the evil tradition of maintaining an artificial division between mental and other disorders. Such artificial separation meant that patients did not get such good consultation facilities as at a genernl hospital. It also meant attaching to patients a special stigma so that patients with njjld disorders were not brought for treatment and came under treatment at an advanced stage. Moreover, separation also prevented the medical and nursing staffs from becoming familiar with the problems of such disorders. Amongst the advantages of the proposed rooms would he facilities for complete pathological, surgical, and biochemical investigation of individual cases, and also more satisfactory means of educating students, not only in mental disorders, but also in psychological aspects in every-day practise.