Waitati Inebriates' Home

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7847, 26 May 1904, Page 3

Waitati Inebriates' Home

Revelations as to its Manage- . ment.

A Scandalous State of Affairs.

(Post Correspondent).

, . CHRISTCHUECH May 24. During jiis recent trip through.' Otago,-Mr George Laurenson, the member for Lyttelton, paid .a visit to Inebriates' Home at Waitati, and on his return supplied the Cyttelton Times with a scathing criticism of the institution.. Mr Lauranson found that there were eighteen patients there—twelv* men and six women—who were costing the State an average of £5 each per week. # Some of the Ratients were paying and some were non-pay-ing, but apart from this point ' of view altogether there was little doubt m his own mind that the institution was being run upon lines which were not a credit to the Government. The Home itself was situated m a bright and cheery position, and the doctor in charo- e o f it was a popular and able official but there was not the slightest attempt at anything like organisation in connection with it. The patients were well fed and well cared, for, but they were turned out at the end of their incarceration really worse than when ■they went into the Home. There was no system whatever in their treatment, and neither their bodies nor their minds were cared for as they should be ;\ they simply war.dcred about within the "precincts in which they were confined, and put iv the time, as best they could., - TJiere was no "attempt whatever to, treat the .patients for their Infirmity' and the institution was simply a sort of " bush gaol " for inebriates. (Jut of seventy patients who 'hiad already been treated at the institution, there had not been one single dire recorded. The whole place was a mockery., both as regards its administration and its scope. Mr Laurenson declared that it was indeed.the most disgraceful place he had ever seen under Government control. From what he had' seen and heard he had n 6 hesitation in saying thart the institution was not fuW filling the functions expected of it in: the slightest degree, and it should be either shut up at once or else completely re-organised so far ids its* management was concerned. The institution was fairly run from -the. point of view of the patients' ordinary welfare, .but there waß no earthly reason why they should be con-' fined there, as • neither their (bbtfies nor their minds were treated with' any intelligence so as to attempt a cure for .their infirmities, neither was the general administration tfc bo commended. ' ,■ "

Mr Laurenson saw the quarters of the patients, and lie .declared they were cramped and wholly inadequate for the use of the people who oug-ht to bo treated with exceptional care rather- than an ordinary patients Supplies which Oi'ad been ordered months ago were still lying about the premises. He had seen bedsteads, baths, brass castings, and scores of other fittings lying! rustr Jiig in the yard of ttie Home, just because the patients were not requested to attend to them. The patients themselves simply regarded their incarceration as a huge joke, because no attempt was made to cure them of their infirmity. One prominent politician openly boasted that he was keeping a box of pills winch were given him as a cnre. in order to show what the treatment of the Home really. amounted to. Another patient stated that the only cure which had been prescribed to him was the cutting down of an infinitesimal ■ quantity of manuka scrub, whilte a third complained that one hot bath in a few months' time was all that he secured as a iecognition of the substantial payment he was. making towards the funds 01 the institute.

The patients, Mr Laurenson says, are all very bitter concerning ■'■ the present system of administration,, and he thinks with some of justice, that the accommodation ia inferior, the attendance is '■ not discriminating, and the whole institute requires reorganising on a substantially ' 'different system. Mr Laurenson stated further that he had been so impressed with the shortcomings of the institution tl-.at when the vote for its assistance comes up for consideration next session he intends to challenge it, with a. view to having . the matter thoroughly ventilated.

The institution, it may bo added, is now in charge of the AttorneyGeneral (Hon. A. Pitt), who took it over from the Hon. W. Hall-Jones when the latter went to England. Questioned on the subject by an Evening Post representative to-dny, the Hon. A. Pitt said there wns no doubt that the present condition of the Home was unsatisfactory, tut that it was not the fault of the Government but of the system. .An attempt was made to improve matters last session^ when an Act was passed enabling the Governor to set apart institutions for the admission only of those cases in which thoie was a possibility of cure. The matter had since then had the vuy serious attention of the Government, reports had been obtained from Dr. MacGregor and Dr. Truby King, and legislation would be brought down next session with the object of putting the institution on a in ore satisfactory footing. On his return from. Auckland in about a week's time the Attorney-General will pay a visit to the institution.