MENTAL AILMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16583, 5 July 1917, Page 6

MENTAL AILMENTS.

CASE OF DISCHARGED MEN.

NECESSITY FOR TREATMENT. The condition of health of some of the discharged soldiers who apply from time to time to the Claims Board of the Auckland Patriotic Association for assistance, was referred to by Mr. V. J. Lamer, chairman of the board, in the course of an interview yesterday.

" At not infrequent intervals," said Mr. Larner.. " men appear before the board suffering from the effects of neurasthenia and shell shock. Many are well on the road to recovery, but other cases require additional treatment, the men being obviously unable to take proper care of themselves. I consider that a great injustice is done to these men by discharging them before they have recovered or before the authorities are satisfied that they are going to people who are competent to look after them.

"Up to the present," said Mr. Larner. " the cases of the kind I have mentioned which have come under the notice of the Claims Board have been few in number, but one has to look ahead to the fact that many of our men will return to us in this condition before the war ends, and they should be taken in hand as they come along and cared for until they are reasonably fit and well. There can be no doubt that their complete recovery in many instances would be assured if they received proper treatment. It might be a question of a few months in some cases, but a much longer period would be required by others before they recovered. "These men, to the ordinary observer, might be considered fit and well, and many of them are so far as bodily health goes, butj otherwise they are essentially ill, requiring more attention than those wounded by shot and shell. The men are not so unstable as to require treatment in a mental hospital, yet they are quite unfit to be left to their own resources. This is the class of case which is discharged—often without a home . and friends' _to go to, and allowed to roam about aimlessly. Such cases are among the gloomiest and saddest results of the war, and they constitute a problem which, it appears, no attempt has yet been made to solve. Whose care are they? Certainly not the care of the small boardinghousekeeper and of the good-natured friend, but obviously that of the State, which, difficult as the problem is, must face it sooner or later. That there are comparatively only a few of these cases at present is no reason why the Government should overlook the necessity for dealing with them. " It has been suggested," concluded Mr. Larner, " that the officers in charge of returning invalided soldiers have the best opportunity of detecting any symptoms of mental ill-health in the men under their care, and that they should have all such cases watched with a view to the preparation of a special report to be handed to ! the proper quarter on arriving in the Do- | minion. The authorities might then delay i the discharge of such soldiers for the purI pose of specially treating them until they have recovered sufficient stability of mind to enable them to look after themselves in a proper manner on their return to civil life."