HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 222, 19 September 1903, Page 3

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The House met at 2.30 p.m. LUNATIC ASYLUM KEFOBM.

The House went into Committee of Supply for the further consideration of the Estimates.

The first class taken was that of the Lunacy and Charitable Department. A lengthy discussion took place on the question of lunatic asylum reform. Replying to various points raised, Mr HA LL-JONES said he was already making inquiries on the subject of the classification of inmates, and had ascertained that in various asylums there were confined 374 persons who were suffering simply from old age and were practically harmless, while there were 143 imbeciles and idiots. He was determined to have these 517 people out of the asylums and put into other establishments. He was considering the question of remodelling the law relating to the commitment of lunatics, and he was endeavoring to make the relatives of a certain class of people now in asylums take a full share of their responsibility. With regard to the two classes he had previously mentioned, he was making inquiries for a building to which they could be removed without waiting for the erection of a new building. Jf he was unsuccessful in his search he would select a site and erect a building. As to his future policy, he did not believe in large asylums, but in a series cf smaller detached buildings, in which classification could be carried out. One portion of the building should be devoted exclusively to the reception of new patients, and there should also be wards at the hospitals tq which patients could be sent before being drafted t» the various asylums. The term '• lunatic asylum " would in future be abolished, and the institutions styled "hospital for mental diseases." He intended to try the experiment of women doctors in-the female wards of these hospitals, and he would have careful enquiry made into the cause of the increase in lunacy whioh had taken place of late years. He hoped that by next session members would see a very great improvement effected.