THE CENTRAL MENTAL HOSPITAL

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2373, 14 December 1908, Page 5

THE CENTRAL MENTAL HOSPITAL

PROPOSED UP-TO-DATE BUILD•SDXI [Press Association.] WELLINGTON, Dec. 13. The site of the central mantal hospital. which is to be established in the North Island, is on the North Island Trunk Railway, and Crown lands will be utilised. Many and varied considerations have entered into the matter of the selection, access, area, climate, quality of soil, and so on; and all the while the Department has had in view the fact that in establishing the lios-pt-al it would as far as possible seek to erect an institution which would enable the officers in charge to carry into effect tbe latest and most up-to-date theories for the treatment of he insane. There will be no big blocks of buildings. The structure will be designed more particularly for the purpose of facilitating classification, and. where necessary, separate treatment. In the course of time the new hospital will, it is expected, become a self-contained community, growing its own vegetables, grain, meat, and so on, because the area available will be some thousands of acres capable of cultivation for all sorts of purposes, and, if the experiment succeeds, able to provide from its own labor the cost of running. Tho curative effects of classification and small communities of inmates, in conjunction- wjth the up-to-date system of treatment consequent. thereon, are the objects chiefly aimed at, but with the large area of land occupied there are possibilities of economical working. The new Government House is to eh erected on the land how occupied by the Mount View Mental Hospital, and the work is to be put .in hand at soon -as possible. At the commencement of' operations only a portiou of the inmates will he disturbed, and the extensions now going on at SeaclilFe, Porirua, Auckland, and Waitati will he sufficient to provide for the accommodaton. Meanwhile the erection of the various blocks of buildings at the new mental hospital will be carried on with the necessary expedition ; and it is -anticipated that within only a few months -a considerable amount of accommodation will have been provided. The policy will be to draft there all the patientsjwho-are capable of aiding in the development of the institution, patients who can _ work while tbe curative process is going on, leaving to the other institutions tho care of those -patients who have no industrial value.