MENTAL HOSPITALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23886, 14 August 1939, Page 11

MENTAL HOSPITALS

TO THE EDITOR Sir. —I have read with interest your sub-leader of August 8 on the subject of mental hospitals. Departmental reports are usually statistically most informative, but shed little li£ht on administrative detail. The general public has little idea of the conditions under which the patients in our mental institutions live. That these conditions are not as satisfactory as they should be in an enlightened and progressive community like New Zealand, correspondence appearing in the last few months in the Christchurch Press would incline one to believe. Mr Leonard Booth, a patient recently discharged from a mental hospital, gave in several successive letters a calm and convincing but at the same time a disquieting account of the conditions under which he spent close on five years in one of the New Zealand mental institutions. His experience, of course, relates to only one hospital, but it is unlikely, as the mental hospitals in our four main centres are under the same central administration, that the conditions in them vary materially from one to another. Mr Eooth's criticism falls under several heads: — 1. Surroundings and companionship so uncongenial as inevitably to exercise a most depressing effect on a patient of ordinary sensitiveness. He says: At the mental hospital in New Zealand at which I was an Inmate, the newcomer finds himself in enforced close association, day and night, with cases indescribably various and evilly depressive—cases of strange neuroses, habitual criminality, imbecility, venereal disease, senility, infantile paralysis, sexual abnormality, sleeping sickness, congenital madness. Experience has taught me that the actions and speeches of the more vicious of the persons have upon the minds of the more sensitive and the introspective effects that are in very fact terrible. 2. No therapeutic-psychological treatment. Again quoting: To the question whether there is any therapeutic-psychological treatment, my answer is that there is not. Medical officers generally in mental hospitals content themselves with giving only paliative treatment—a word of encouragement, a litle handiwork, games, concerts, and other diversions which are to the purpdse only, of turning the patient's attention from the mental groove into which he has fallen. 3. Diet, a very necessary part of building up sound mind or sound body: Throughout the time during which I was a patient in a mental hospital, which was from November, 1933, until September, 1938, the diet supplied to me and to patients in general was:—Morning—porride with a modicum of milk, bread, a-half ounce of butter, tea with a modicum of milk and a modicum of sugar; mid-day—meat with potatoes and boiled vegetable, rice or sago or tapioca or pastry with treacle or rhubarb, once a week fish in lieu of meat, once a week soup. Evening—breads a-half ounce of butter, treacle or jam. tea with a modicum of milk and a modicum of sugar, once a week a slice of cake, once a fortnight a piece of cheese. At no time was I supplied with any vegetable such as is eaten uncooked; at no time was I supplied with any fruit. Mr Booth says, amongst many other things, that, "for patients who were unable to engage in what is known in gaols as hard labour, provision for fresh air and exercise was in the way of an area outside, 30yds by 20yds. bordered on three sides by high walls. These restrictions on his physical movement continued to be imposed upon him, he says, until the very last moment, at which the authorities deemed him fit for release from the institution. No attempt has so far been made to disprove these statements. His letter of June 1. from which most of these quotations come, was submitted to the Director-general of Mental Hospitals, who stated that he did not feel disposed to make any comment upon it. In your article you state that the latest annual- report throws no light upon the position which New Zealand occupies in comparison with other countries in respect of incidence of mental disease. Roughly, the proportion of inmates of mental hospitals in New Zealand, per head of population, is nearly double that of Great Britain. This country has more than once led the world in social legislation. Why should it lag behind other countries in respect of its mental institutions? The first and most necessary reform would seem to be the establishment of boards of control for our mental hospitals such as exist for our general hospitals. And legislation for the creation of such boards will be enacted if, and when, the thinking public becomes sufficiently alive to the need for them. I hope that others will come forward with information which will help to hurry about much needed reforms.—l am, etc.. M - B -