MENTAL HOSPITALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26232, 16 August 1946, Page 4

MENTAL HOSPITALS

DECENTRALISATION PLAN A DOCTOR’S CRITICISM (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 14. Criticism of the scheme advocated by the Director-general of Mental Hospitals, Dr T. G. Gray, for the development of the villa system of mental hospital grouping and the decentralisation of mental institutions was made by Dr T. J. Daly, formerly .medical officer at Porirua Mental Hospital, in an interview to-day prior to “ 1S departure on the Rangitiki for London. . . vThe standard of medicine in New Zealand was good, Dr Daly said, and the treatment of mental patients had improved, but many of the present administrative difficulties could be ironed out if the unsatisfactory remote control of hospitals from the central department was replaced by local control. There would be. much dissatisfaction among nurses if hospitals were situated far away from the cities and centres of entertainment. The chief consideration, Dr Daley added, was that the mental patient had still:to be considered as a physical entity even though he was mentally sick, and the results of his mental condition were portrayed in his physical wellbeing. Consequently, mental hospitals should be in close contact with the general hospitals near the cities, and not isolated in the country. Mental, medical, and surgical treatment should all be co-ordinated in the mental hospital. This would explode the idea of removing hospitals from the cities, which, after all, was an oldfashioned idea.

Dr Daly came to New Zealand in 1938 at the request of the Government, and was at Porirua Mental Hospital until 1944, when he was manpowered to Karamea, Westport, where he set up a “ bush ” practice. He is now returning to London and later to his native Ireland.