MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2279, 26 August 1908, Page 2

MENTAL HOSPITALS.

THE ANNUAL REPORT. REFORM URGED. (Special tq “Times.”) WELLINGTON, August 25.. Dr. Hay reports the increase ill the total number of patients in the mental hospitals to bo only 31 for the year. For the figures approximating tho small addition to the number in the mental hospitals at the end of the year, one has to go back to 1890, when the increase was 30, and when the actual admissions numbered 381, as against GOO in 1907. The total number of patients is 3210 for 1907. The proportion of the -'total insane to the total population was (exclusive of Maoris) 34.47 per 10,000, or 1 in 290; inclusive of Maori 33.15 per 10,000, or 1 in 302. Dr. Hay mentions that for a ratio as low as the present, one lias to go back to some period during the year 1900, when the proportion of insane to population (exclusive of Maoris) rose from I in 290 at the beginning to 1 in 288 it the end of the year. The highest proportion was in 1903, viz., 1 in 284. These ratios are practically the same as those in Great Britain (that of England and Wales on the Ist January, 1907, was 1 to 282), but it was pointed out in the last report that the ratio is very low among, nativeboni New Zealanders of European stock forming that section of our population which, conceding an excess of younger persons in its age distribution, is at all comparable with the population of an older country. He adds, “One finds tho significance of these statistics misunderstood by 60 many that, at the risk of repetition becoming tedious to the few, it must be pointed out that the above ratios relate to the insane accumulated in our institutions over a number of years and are misleading if used as a measure of the growth of the malady. The figures hereunder dealing with the ratio of admissions to population, even of first admissions, though furnishing a better, are not a trustworthy measure for, in addition to the source of error which we share with other countries, there is one peculiar in communities whose expansion is largely by accretion. Last year I showed that these accretions were relatively unstable elements, being chiefly adult persons whose ratio of insanity was higher than that among adults in their country of origin, and how. in the general statistics, this neutralised the low ratio of insanity among the nat-ive-born population of European stock. It is not my intention to repeat the figures and deductions, but only to ask that the fact be kept in mind when inferences are drawn from our statistics.” The admissions during the year numbered 600, 472 of the 600 were admitted for the first time, 105 were re-admitted from a hospital other than the one in which they were subsequently admitted. Six of Die patients were three being received as first admissions and three as re-admissions. The recovery rate is the highest since 1888. There is a slight advance in the death rate. “In the last report,” says Dr. Hay, “I dealt at some length with the proportion of the sexes among tho insane and their condition as to marriage. These matters need not bo repeated. Since then a new Act is upon the Statute Book which makes insanity a ground for divorce if deemed to be incurable or which has lasted for ten years in the twelve preceding tlio filing of the petition. It would be out of place for me to criticise so recent ail Act, hut naturally I must regret it from the patients’ standpoint. A case was recently brought to my notice by her husband of a patient whose recovery liad been retarded by gossiping discussions of the Act among her fellow-patients raising suspicions as to his fidelity and intentions. It has been argued that this Act would limit the unfit. A miconception dies hard and that statement has been repeated so often and by such responsible persons that one is in duty bound to point out its irrelevancy. In the year under review 299 persons (males 160, females 139) were discharged, as recovered, and returned to their homes as free agents. Of this number, including four at the age of puberty, 256 (males 147, females' 109) were able to reproduce their kind, and of these only one unmarried man and one married. Chinaman fulfilled the conditions of having been insane for ten years. True, the one man may have been divorced and may have remained a celibate, but what of the other 255? Here is a real problem, but one, I fear, which must be left for some future generation to solve. “The acominodation during the year was considerably taxed. In regard to the site for another mental hospital, Dr. Hays says, “I believe the most suitable site within our means will soon be selected, but the requirements are so complex and the decision so momentous that anything in the way'jof haste is to be deprecated. The site must possess natural features contributing to future economy in management, and the estate must bo sufficiently large for a mental hospital made up of detached buildings capable of very considerable extension, and to have apart from the mental hospital spaco for other institutions or colonies which may be placed hereafter under the control of this Department. THE RATIONAL REMEDY.'

IS IT JUSTIFIABLE?

[Special to “Times.”]

WELLINGTON, August 25. One of the most striking passages in the annual report on tlie mental hospitals of the Dominion, which was presented to Parliament to-day, is supplied in. the report furnished by Dr. Beattie, medical superintendent of tho Auckland mental hospital, in his report on that institution, lie puts forward oil argument in favor of tho sterilisation of certain inmates of mental hospitals, and gives an illustration in support of his plea. In referring to the patients in liiS institution at tho beginning of the year, lie sav.s: “A sad caso is that of a girl under twenty years of age and married, whose father committed suicide, who lias a sister in the Te Oranga Home and another who was twice an inmate hero, and who, a few months after her last release, married a gum digger and lias since given birth to twins. The present inmate will recover, and as silo is married it is an easy task to forecast the future. If sterilisation is not the rational remedy in such a case, lj know of no other. I am fully aware that such a course of action is in opposition to present humanitarianisiu, and is an interference with the liberty of the individual, but liumaiiitarianism is sometimes sicklv sentimentalism, and the liberty if the individual too often means the liberty to work irreparable mischief. I trust that something may be done ultimately, short of radical’measures, to lessen the inflow of hereditary cases, by the Association. AVitli that object ill view by the mental hospital medical superintendents and the medical school inspectors when medical school inspection becomes fully established, the children of insane and highly neurotic parents must receive special consideration.”