MENTAL DISORDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19712, 11 August 1927, Page 11

MENTAL DISORDERS.

EARLY TREATMENT SCHEME. GENERAL HOSPITAL CLINIC. INCREASE IN ATTENDANCES. The usefulness of the clinic conducted weekly at the Auckland General Hospital for people suffering from nervous or incipient mental disorders is steadily increasing as its existence becomes more widely known. A marked increase in the number of people attenting has taken place since the New Zealand Herald referred to its work a month or two ago, and there is reason to believe that, apart from its benefit to individuals, it will do .much toward educating the public mind as to mental disorders. While there are patients who voluntarily seek medical advice when they feel they are losing their grip or developing what they recognise to be irrational tenden- I cies, the majority, probably, require the persuasive influence of their relatives or friends to induce them to seek it, while, of course, there are those for whom others must act upon their own responsibility. But such is the average attitude of mind of the public that many people shrink in horror against taking steps which might possibly attach what they are prone to call the stigma of insanity upon a dear one or a family. The Public Attitude. As a matter of fact insanity is not a medical but a legal term and the more one listens to medical men and reads literature on the subject, the more one appreciates the truth of a line in an old poem in which a gold prospector, a typical "mad hatter," says "There's none of you too sane, it's just a little matter of degree." Hie fact remains, however, that the public still regards mental ill-health as a st3te totally distinct from physical illness, as a condition from which a patient never really recovers. This being so, it is vitally important that in general hospitals there should be a department to which patients may go or be taken without the slightest fear that stigma might subsequently rest upon them. This department is the clinic conducted every Tuesday afternoon by Dr. H. M. Prins, who in very many cases is able to restore a patient to a proper perspectiveby advice that inspires confidence. Committal Optional. In some cases a patient is recommended to become a voluntary patient in the Wolf Home, but in no case are steps taken to have a person formally committed to the Mental Hospital without the consent of his relatives. As a matter of fact the general hospital in its ordinary work always has been something of a "half-way house" for mental patients. The institution has neither the accommodaion nor the facilities for treating mental diseases, but from year to year it is often compelled to minister to a mind diseased. When it is clear that the case is beyond the functions of the hospital it does not, however, arrange for the committal of the patient to the Mental Hospital, responsibility .for that course being left to the patient's friends. If the friends consent, a report is mads to a magistrate, who instructs two medical men to examine the patient independently and should their reports agree as to the necessity for committal the patient is sent to the Magistrate's Court, where he is seen by the magistrate before the final signature is affixed. Court Formalities. It is the opinion of many people that while the Department of Justice must retain all its powers in regard to mental patients for the protection of sufferers themselves as well as the public, it should not be necessary for a patient to appear at a court or even be seen in an ambulance outside a court by a magistrate, seeing that such formalities may leave enduring unpleasant memories. It is a court appearance that helps to give the supposed stigma. This is an aspect of the matter which has no relation, however, to the hospital clinic, the establishment of which in each of the cities marks a definite advance in the treatment of mental diseases in their early stages and will reduce the amount of mental wreckage that reaches the mental hospitals.