ERRONEOUS COMMITTALS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19256, 21 August 1924, Page 12

ERRONEOUS COMMITTALS.

TO THE EDITOR.' Sir, —ln your article on the above subject in today’s Otago Daily Times you refer to the recent case of a man (alluded to as “Mr X”) committed to Avondale as suffering from delusions, but subsequently on a re-oxamination released as sane. Considering all he was alleged to haves done and said (according to tho newspaper report) I think most people would undoubtedly regard him as insane, whether he had in addition delusions or not. The crying need of the mental hospitals in New Zealand is that each should have a board of guardians —men of position and character, meeting, say, on tho first Monday in each calendar month to hear and settle all grievances, whether between individual members of the staff or between the patients and the staff. The present arrangement, of an Inspectoigeneral residing at Wellington who is expected to adjudicate in all disputes and complaints in the half-dozen institutions under his charge seems quite inadequate. Some of his functions might bo delegated to local boards to the much more efficient working of "these monuments of failure,’’ as tho late Dr MacGregor well called them,—' I am. etc.. Impartial. August 20.