THE LUNACY ACT.

Otago Witness, Issue 890, 19 December 1868, Page 2

THE LUNACY ACT.

If the Government desired to reform the management of our Lunatic Asylums, it ■was bound to enquire into the matter before it attempted to legislate. There is evidence before tis in the Act professedly passed to consolidate and amend the law relating to lunatics, that no enquiry was made for the purpose of adapting the Act to " the circumstances of the colony. The Act was drawn up on the presumption that a Lunatic Asylum in New Zealand stands in precisely the same position as a Lunatic Asylum in Great Britain. In this way only can we account for the fact that many serious difficulties have been unnecessarily created. It was surely not the intention of the Government to create unnecessary diffi- j culties. But their ignorance of the facts they rashly undertook to deal with has led them into ludicrous errors. Certainly they had no business to be ignorant. By transmitting a copy of the proposed Act to the Medical Officers of our Lunatic Asylums, requesting their opinion on the matter, the Government would have been placed in possession of ample information. They would then have been enabled to present the country with a real reform. As it is, they have produced a measure which must inevitably work mischief, and which must be amended during the next session of Parliament. A striking illustration of the practical working of this Act presents itself in a recent occurrence. A correspondent complained the other day of the difficulties he encountered in obtaining the admission of a relative into the Asylum. f To my dismay and surprise, I was informed that a new Act had come into force on the first of the month, and the patient must undergo a fresh examination before he could be legally admitted.' After a consultation between the Medical Officer and the .Superintendent, it was arranged that the patient should be admitted 'as a lodger.' There was no doubt whatever as to his lunacy. Now a reference to the Act will show that the Medical Officer and the Superintendent rendered themselves liable to the penalties of a misdemeanour by this proceeding. Section 15 declares that every person who shall receive any lunatic into any asylum, hospital, or licensed house, without the certificate of two medical practitioners, who shall have examined the patient ( not more than seven clear days previously, 3 shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. Moreover, if it happened that the clerk of the Asylum neglected to transmit to the Colonial Secretary anotice of the admission in the case to which we refer, within twenty-four hours after the admission, he rendered himself liable to a penalEv of £20 : and should the Medical Officer neglect to make an entry in the Register concerning the admission within one month thereafter, he also will incur a penalty of £20. In the event of a prosecudon, it would clearly be no defence that the lunatic was admitted only 'as a lodger.' That would rather be matter of aggravation. For if men could be detained in an Asylum under the pretence of being admitted as lodgers, the intention of the Act would be obviously evaded. The present system requires that the medical practitioners, on whose certificate the patient is to be confined, must examine him ' not more than seven days previously ' to his admission into the Asylum. The object of this restriction as to time is clear enough. In the old country, where railway communication penetrates every corner of the land, a period of seven days is not a short one ; but in this colony, where railway communication can hardly be said to exist at all, such a period is absurdly short. In the case of a. lunatic sent down to Dunedin from a distant point in the interior, the certificate on which his confinement has been ordered might be a nullity by the time he reached the Asylum. That would necessitate a second series of tedious and expensive formalities. No danger would have been incurred liad the Act spe.cifi.ed fourteen or twenty-one days instead of seven. Again, section 5 enacts that any two Justices, or a Resident Magistrate having juris: iction, upon the certificate of two medical practitioners, shall order any confines vi a gaol, or other person who may exhibit symptoms of lunacy, to i be conveyed to an Asylum for treatment, or for safe custody pending an examination. Section 6 enacts that, if the medical practitioners should be of opinion that the person thus con- j fined is not a lunatic, and that he may be suffered to go at large with safety, they shall then give a certificate to that effect to the Justices, who shall then transmit the same forthwith to the Colonial Secretary, who ' if ho shall so think fit' may then order the liberation of the person examined. On what ground is the liberation referred to the Colonial Secretary ? And on -what ground is the Colonial Secre-

tary authorised, 'if he shall so think fit/ to retain in custody a man pronounced by two medical practitioners to be free from all taint of lunacy ? Why, this is monstrous. No one can suppose that the Colonial Secretary is even entitled to an opinion on such a matter. The medical practitioners are the only judges of the question at issue ; and their decision should be final, as a matter of course. The supposed lunatic should be entitled to his freedom the moment after the practitioners have signed the certificate in favour of his sanity. Putting that aside, it is obvious that compliance with these formalities would involve a considerable delay ; and during this delay, the supposed lunatic would be kept in custody to his personal detriment, though possibly to the great benefit of unscrupulous relatives. The discharge of patients, when cured, ought to he an easy matter. Hitherto it has been so, but the case is altered by the j new Act. Under the old system, when the Medical Officer of the Asylum certified that a patient might be suffered to leave the institution, the Resident Magistrate ordered his discharge, and the man was free. Under the new system, the Medical Officer has no power in the matter. The discharge of a patient rests with the Colonial Secretary, the Inspector of Asylums, and the person who signed j the order for admission. This innovation in ovr simple practice is of course borrowed from the English law ; and bor- 1 rowed unfortunately without any enquiry as to its expediency. In England, there is no difficulty in communicating with the various persons concerned in the discharge of a patient. There, itis generally the Relieving Officer of the parish to j which the patient belongs, who signs the ! order for his admission into the Asylum. When the patient is about to be discharged, notice can be sent at once to the Relieving Officer, andfromhim to the Commissioners in Lunacy. But there is no assurance of similar facilities here. Months might elapse before the whereabouts of the person who signed the order for admission could be discovered : yet the patient could not be discharged until this personage was found. And, again, there is no reason for placing unnecessary restrictions on the liberty of lunatics. The amount of freedom with which they can at any time be trusted, is a matter for the Medical Officer to decide. But under the present system, he is liable to a heavy penalty if he allow any patient to pass beyond the grounds of the Asylum, even in charge of an attendant, without having first obtained the consent in writing of the Inspector of Asylums, and of the person who signed the order for the admission of the lunatic. Either, or both, of these persons might of course be hundreds of miles distant from the Asylum at the time. If the Medical Officer be fit for his position, there can surely be no necessity for such a restriction. q> In an Act which deals so much in prohibitions and penalties, we naturally look for the suppression of objectionable license. Yet even here we are disappointed. More than once it has happened that lunatics have been conveyed to Otago from the neighbouring colonies and elsewhere, and received in the Asylum within a few days after their arrival. Thi3 should not be allowed. "Yet the Act allows it, for it is silent on the subject. If it had required that the Medical Officer should be resident in the Asylum, there I could have been no objection. Indeed it is difficult to understand how the duties attaching to the office, as specified in the present Act, can be properly performed without residence in the Asylum. According to English practice, where the number of the patients exceeds one hundred, residence is required. While the framers of the new Act were borrowing so extensively from English legislation, it is not a little strange that they should have omitted to borrow where it was most advisable to do so.