OFFICIAL VISIT TO TEE LUNATIC ASYLUM

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9123, 3 August 1888, Page 6

OFFICIAL VISIT TO TEE LUNATIC ASYLUM

Mr. Stevenson and I officially visited the Asylum yesterday, when we found the patients quiet and the premises in order, reflecting credit on the whole staff. No patients wero under restraint, nor were any in seclusion, and only five or six were ill in bed. Since our last visit a little idiotic Maori girl, who always delighted to see as, has passed to her rest, and we missed her familiar face. One cannot regret that the child has gone to her long home, for, although the attendants were extremely kind to her, the poor child merely vegetated here. Another little sufferer demands constant attention, being perfectly helpless, and it is very gratifying to find the attendants and even the patients so kind to her. Indeed, it is one feature of our Asylums that children are specially well cared for, and I was tola that some of the very worst patients in the male yard would kill anyone who ill-used either of the little dumb boys who are inmates of the Asylum. During the quarter 21 patients have been admitted ; 5 males and 6 females have been discharged, cured ; 2 males and 1 female discharged relieved, and 4 males and 3 females on trial. In the same period 3 males and 3 females died, and 1 male escaped. There are now in the two Asylums 237 men, 126 women, and 5 children : total, 368. Of these 338 are pauper lunatics, supported wholly by the State, 2 are paid for by the Public Trustee, and 31 are contributing patients, but some only nominally contribute 2s (3d per week, and the maintenance arrears tot up to £841175. The State is being shamefully imposed upon, and it is a great shame to expect the Superintendent to collect these monies. It hast been pointed out that medical superintendents are becoming cooks, gardeners, engineers, architects, and in fact everything; seeing their patients perhaps once a week, or less often ; having little time or strength to confine themselves to their purely medical duties and the mental cure of their patients. Dr. Cremonini visits his patients daily, but it is a fatal mistake to burden him with the collecting of money, and other minor things which absorb his time and energy. The public Treasury suffers, too, because there is no doubt people can easily persuade themselves that the State ought to keep their useless relations. There are in the asylum 14 male and 1 female criminal lunatics, who ought not to be kept with the other inmates, because some of them are dangerous, but there is no present hope of separate wards for tin Some of them being murderers, thev never hope for release except by death, ar.d knowing that the law absolves lunatics from punishment, they are reckless of what harm they do. Of the whole 368 inmates only 7 males and 5 females are deemed curable ; and out of the total no less than 58 males and 26 females never leave the exercise yards for change of excrcis-;, the reason assigned being that they could not be controlled. In the 41st Report of the Lunacy Commissioners, very kindly sent to me from London by Dr. Tucker, the commissioners speak about this matter, and urge the great necessity f <r giving even the hopelessly incurable patients a change by exercise outside. They instance the Barnstead Asylum in Middlese :, containing 2009 patients, and say, " Very few of either sex are confined to airing courts." Parties of '200 men and 100 women go beyond the grounds for exercise two or three times a week, and walking exercise is given on the estate twice a week. I am aware that in England the asylum grounds are walled in, b it it is our duty to point out what would be to the advantage of patients, and it is only by constant pressure of public opinion that reforms can be effected, and the authorities stimulated to spending point. Eighty-four out of 368 who never leave the airing yards is a great proportion. The monotony of the four walls must be awful. The Lunacy Commissioners say: The rule should be that none but the physically incabable should be entirely restricted to the airing courts," and they add that "exercise h only second in importance to employment." Again, speaking of Bruntwood Asylum, which contains 557 patients, they say : —" We are glad to be assured that no patients are entirely confined to tire airing courts, but that all patients in rotation, which we trust is a frequent one, have extended exercise." Of the Brook wood Asylum in Surrey, containing over 1000 patients, they say :—" We re sorry to find that more than one quarter of the total number of male patients are entirely lined to the airing courts for exercise. We hope Dr. Barton will send (or walks in the grounds in small parties, with a strong staff, all, or nearly all, those not physically incapacitated from going beyond the airing courts and repeatedly they attach the greatest importance to all exercise about the grounds and elsewhere. Especially to the poor women would it be a boon to be permitted a little change, and common humanity dictates that a sufficient staff of attendants should be provided to permit of all, except the absolutely uncontrollable male patients, being taken out in small exercise parties. Some have been confined so long in the yards that it cannot be ascertained when they were last out.

The amusements provided for the patients are more liberal than ever, and the painter is very tastefully beautifying the inner walls of the building. The bedding is good and sufficient, and so is the food. 159 males and 82 females are usefully employed, and out of the whole number only one is said to be fit for discharge. It. requires very little here to get a person into an asylum, and Dr. Ray says:" The law pro- | tects a man until the gates of an asylum close upon him, and then his fate depends on the grace of God and the will of a medical superintendent." OPINIONS OF EXPERTS about visitation. In America the superintendents have banded together to resist infection. Dr. Tucker has shown that official' visitation is open to three objections:—" (1) Tho visits are not frequent enough ; (2) they are made at stated times; and (3) the inspection is not sufficiently minute. . . . The object of official visitation should be to ascertain the normal condition of the asylum ; but it is too often the case that the inspection is merely the occasion of a special display, which must of necessity be misleading and delusive." The late Earl of Shaftesbury testified likewise ; Dr. Ray writes more strongly, and the British Lunacy Commissioners, in their 41st Report for I*BB7, to the Lord Chancellor, found the same evil even in Colney Hatch, one of the crack asylums in England. They said :—" We learn that the committee go round once every two months, but some of the patients told us they were denied speech with them, but this, we trust, is not the case. The patients also complained that the guardians from some of the Unions never came to see them, and this complaint is well-founded, and we have to express a hope that the committee will urge on the various Boards who neglect their duty in this respect the desirability of making visits to their patients at certain* times." In their report on the Worcester Asylum, where they found magistrates coming into personal contact with patients as we do, they express their great gratification, and say it contents many lunatics to do so. LUNATICS ACT, ISB2. Sec. 131 says:— Every asylum, hospital, and licensed house, or private house, in which a lunatic is detained, shall, without any previous notice, cut often as an inspector or an official visitor shall think fit, and at lea-it once in every three months, be visited by an inspector and an official visitor respectively." Sec. 132 says " Every such visit shall be made on such day or days, and at such hours of the day or night, and for such length of time as the inspector or an official visitor shall respectively think fit ;" and it is our duty to have taken before the Resident Magistrate patients whom we think are unnecessarily detained. A most determined attempt has been made to intimidate us and prevent us seeing the patients more than four times a year 7 but we will never concede our right to stand upon the law until it is repealed, or we are removed from office. We do not get a penny for anything we do, and, being actuated only" by good-will towards the patients, we will never abandon them to red tape.

NEEDFUL REFORM IN OUR ASYLUM. The Superintendent is in no wise responsible for the absence of probationary wards in our Asylum, and, possibly in the impoverished state of our colonial exchequer, we can hardly expect more money spent on it; but it iseema cruel and unjust not to

have probationary wards. Imagine an overworked business man in Queen-street, or a poor mother almost worried to death by a large family while their father is out of work, showing suspected symptoms of insanity. They are examined by two doctors, who cannot decide that they are insane. They are committed to the Asylum for fourteen days "on probation." Good heavens ! why not say, Committed to the Asylum to force them over the boundary line between sanity and insanity ? for they are turned into wards or airing courts with dangerous maniacs and others in all stages of madnessyes, even with patients l'ke Brown, who was the other day sent to our Asylum from the gaol for repeated attempts at murder ! What man or woman in Auckland could stand such an ordeal for fourteen days without going mad ? Now, there should be probationary wards, where persons can be placed and observed without being driven mad by the horrors of Asylum life. A respectable woman, who has been in the Asylum only a week or two, whom Dr. Cremonini admits is only fit for the Refuge, and whom Colonel Haultain is trying to get released, Eiaid to me to-day : " Please get me out at once, sir, for a week more of this life will kill me." The Superintendent is not to blame for this, because he must receive those who are properly committed, but our system is to blame. I know other women that I think ought to be released. Equally important is the boarding out of convalescent patients, not only because of the inhumanity of detaining them amidst the depressing influences of Asylum life, but because it is almost impossible to get situations for men or women who are residing in the Asylum. The cost, too, is a factor, for, although it is illegal to detain those who are recovered, yet, on grounds of humanity, they are not turned adrift. In England and Scotland the boarding-out system is adopted, and I enclose a letter from a settler showing that it might be tried here. F. G. Ewinoton.