MENTAL HOSPITALS AND ECONOMY AXE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 119, 10 August 1927, Page 16

MENTAL HOSPITALS AND ECONOMY AXE

EDEN MEMBER’S FEAR (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter .) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Mr. H. G. R. Mason, member for Eden, expressed a fervent hope in the House this evening that the mental hospitals of the Dominion would not suffer as a result of any reduction in hospital expenditure. “It would be particularly mean,” he said, “to take advantage of mental patients to exercise general economy.” “There seems to be no excuse for not going on with the work of the Auckland Mental Hospital,” continued Mr. Mason. “I hope there will be no delay in the name of economy in this particular work.” He understood that something had been done toward purchasing a site for the institution, and so far as he knew of the general outline of the country there, a fairly good choice had been made. The growth of the population in the Point Chevalier district during the past few years had been simply remarkable. and where there had been a handful of some 200 or 300 people five years ago, there were now so many thousands. It was essential that an institution such as the Auckland Mental Hospital should be carefully placed so far as its proximity to civilisation was concerned, and he urged the Minister of Health to declare himself upon the question.