DEATH AT HOSPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1934, Page 5

DEATH AT HOSPITAL

DISTRICT CORONERS INQUIRY, i ■ ’ “DEPRESSIVE MANIA” VICTIM. That the deceased had committed suicide at the New Plymouth hospital while in a state of severe mental depression on August 16 was the verdict returned by the district coroner, Mr. W. H. Woodward. S.M.. at an inquiry held yesterday into the death of Eric Leighton Robson, a railway employee at New Plymouth. .... . Dr. C. A. Taylor stated that he had found Robson lying in a pool of blood in the lavatory with a lacerated wound in his throat apparently caused by a blade razor found nearby. Robson was dead. ■ Robson had been a patient at the hospital and had shown symptoms of a maniac depresswe psychosis, periods of mental excitement alternating ■ with periods of deep depression. He needed restraint.

Corroborative evidence was given by Dr. Mcllroy. There had been no signs, however, that the patient contemplated suicide. He had apparently obtained a blade razor from another patient’s locker.

John A. McQueen, railway clerk, New Plymouth, said he had visited Robson on the day of his death. He had seemed despondent, stating that he feared beingtaken to Porirua Mental Hospital and that he would be mad the following day. McQueen did not suspect that Robson contemplated suicide or he would have informed the doctors. _ John Hi Robson, retired sawmiller, Stratford, father of the deceased, said that his son had suffered from insomnia and had been worried about it. He did not suspect that suicide was contemplated. He was satisfied that the hospital staff had done everything possible for his son.