MENTAL PATIENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21597, 15 September 1933, Page 13

MENTAL PATIENTS

PROPOSAL FOR TRANSFER WAIKATO HOSPITAL PROTEST / DUTY OF DEPARTMENT [from our own correspondent] HAMILTON, Thursday A request that the Waikato Hospital Board should make provision for the accommodation for a number of patients at present in the Tokanui Mental Hospital was made to the board to-day and met with strenuous protests from the members. A letter was read from Dr. Prins, medical superintendent of the Tokanui Mental Hospital, stating that there were a number of patients at Tokanui whose mental condition was now such' that their detention in the institution was no longer necessary. The board was asked to arrange for the accommodation of six of these patients. The medical superintendent of the Waikato Hospital, Dr. M. M. Hockin, said there were 50 male patients at Tokanui who could not be properly accommodated. Beds could be found for them, but on wet days there was no room for them to move. The DirectorGeneral of Mental Hospitals had suggested that the patients concerned should be placed in a car and handed ever to the Waikato Board, but Dr. Prins very considerately came and discussed the matter with the speaker before taking any action. Dr. Hockin said the cases were not very bad, but with the facilities available at the Waikato Hospital they would cause endless trouble. There were numerous gullies near the Waikato Hospital. One man wandered from the institution last year and was later found dead.

The chairman, Mr. J. J. Ryburn, said the request was an unusual one. The board had not received one like it for the 20 years he had been a member. He considered it was the duty of the Mental Hospitals Department to provide adequate accommodation for the border-line cases such as those referred to. The patients were not wanted in the Waikato Hospital, where there were only women nurses to look after them. Dr. Hockin said sometimes inmates of the Old Men's Home wandered into the hospital and frightened the life out of other patients, although they were quite harmless. Mr. F. Findlay, official visitor at the Tokanui Mental Hospital, said three new houses were being buiit at Tokanui. -He questioned whether patients certified sane should be retained in a mental hospital. The chairman said if the mental hospital superintendent and the board's medical superintendent certified a man as sane, then, provided relatives were not available to look after him, the responsibility of the care of the man was that of the board. The board decided to advise the Mental Hospitals Department and the Minister in charge that it definitely decliiied to take responsibility for Tokanui Mental Hospital patients on the grounds that it was the duty of the department to look after them; that the board had no facilities or accommodation for them; and that the presence of such patients was calculated to upset the other patients and the working of the hospital. «