THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1924. ERRONEOUS COMMITTALS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19255, 20 August 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1924. ERRONEOUS COMMITTALS.

The presentation, in the Lower House yesterday of the annual report on the mental hospitals of New Zealand was followed by a discussion in which a good deal of stress was laid on the need for making provision for “border line” cases. There does not seem to have been any allusion to the revelation in the Supremo Court at Auckland this week of the case of a man who was committed to a mental hospital upon the assumption that he had certain alleged delusions when, in fact, it is now recognised, these were not delusions at all. A certain feeling of uneasiness will, however, bo created by this disclosure. It has been generally supposed that the system under which committals are made only upon the certificates of two medical practitioners and a magistrate afforded ample protection against the risk that a sane person might be subjected to the indignity and injustice of being confined in a mental hospital and thrust into the company of unquestionably insane fcllow-heings. The system seems, however, to bo not flawless. A presumption lies against the person for whose committal a warrant is sought. Statements of fact which are made by him in the course of his examination may be treated as delusions. That is what seems to he precisely what happened in this particular case. When these statements are branded as delusions, for reasons of their own, by members of the family of the person who is alleged to be insane, it is obvious that it is only as tho result of an exhaustive investigation that tho truth can bo ascertained. An exhaustive investigation is probably, however, the exception rather than the rule. It would he unfair no doubt to suggest that the examinations are perfunctory. On the other hand it may be suggested that more frequently than otherwise they are speedily disposed of. A ready explanation of this is furnished in the fact that most people, from a mistaken sense of kindness or from some other motive, shrink from taking steps to secure tho committal of relatives until it has become evident to thorn that no other course, is open to them, and in cases of this character the examination prior to the committal may in reality be reduced almost to a matter of form. But when one case has been brought to light in which tho medical men, who certified to tho insanity of a person, acknowledge that their view respecting his condition would have been greatly modified if they were aware of the facts that have now been brought to their notice, tho fear that there may have been other, though not numerous, cases of a similar character is not one that can be lightly dismissed from the public’ mind. In these circumstances the opinion expressed byMr Justice Stringer “that there ought to be some further investigation into alleged delusions before a man can he summarily committed to a mental hospital” will receive wide endorsement.