OUR MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17133, 21 June 1927, Page 6

OUR MENTAL HOSPITALS.

A PROGRESSIVE POLICY. MINISTER’S INTENTIONS. "None of us know -when, under tht great strain of modern life, wo may he subjected to a nervous breakdown.’* declared lion. J. A. Young, Minister of Health, during the course of certain remarks on the control of mental hospitals in a speech at Hamilton, last night. The Minister said that £SOO had been placed at the disposal of each of the four city hospitals, for ttic establishment of a room, where, oucc a week, patients, or the relatives of persons whom they felt were on the verge of some mental unbalance, could obtain the advice of experts. Arrangements were also being made with the hospitals to set aside a room for those mental patients awaiting transfer to mental institutions. The idea of the Department was that' half-way patients should he received at some homely country cottage, where the highly sensitive would not feel they were entering a mental hospital, and where a temporary classification could be made.

Briefly the Department’s policy was: (a) To afford the fullest opportunity for persons in a state of nervous and mental instability to obtain early and reliable advice, so as to facilitate prompt recognition and suitable treatment in the incipient stages of mental breakdown.

(b) To ensure the provision and use of improved methods of handling and dealing with mental cases, prior to and at the time of committal insane, and to do away with temporary lodgment in prison, pending decision. (c) To ensure the provision and better use of facilities for classification, care and treatment —especially in the case of the more recent, impressionable, sensitive, and curable patients.