The Chrøicle. LEVIN FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1916. THE MENTAL DEFECTIVES ACT AND MEN'S LIBERTY.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 14 July 1916, Page 2

The Chrøicle. LEVIN FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1916. THE MENTAL DEFECTIVES ACT AND MEN'S LIBERTY.

A bill to amend the Mental Defectives Act was foreshadowed ini a statement made to the New Zealand House of 1{ .presentatives some ifew weeks ago. i t ma.v be that the amendments embodied in the bill wi'i! he of tedfniciil ■nature for the most part but members ol Parliament will be well advised to scrutinise cart-fully all the provisions of the hill. . Already -there exist too many facilities for placing people in mental hospitals; and too-Vow means of securing a discharge ( from these institutions. If two medical men can b? got to certify till at any person i.s in what they consider a dangerous mental state, that patient is promptly committed to an environment where the surroundings are of so depressing a nature that the poraon conunitted quietly becomes worse. But although two medical men can induce, the judicial authorities to commit such a per6<u to a mental hospital, ft dozen doctors may not get him out until at least a month or two has.» elapsed; even though the patient's frame of mind may have reached normality within five days of hie reception into the mental hospital. "Who is to act as intermediary for euch a person? Those provided with ready answers will say "The Visiting; Justices"; but the visiting justcee come but once in two months or so. There is a belief in Parliament that certain supposed intermediaries (Between the Minister in Charge of Public Hospitals and the patients w*ho wish to be discharged) will see to the patients' interests in this way; but there is no surety that any one patient will see or hear these salaried "Patients' Friends" (as the Parliamentary Estimates (term them), liet alone be able to make representations to them. The man incarcerated in a mental hospital" "has a sad lot at any time, but when he is held in such surroundings for several weeks after he has come into complete possession of his senses, allegedly to make sure he will suffer no relapse, this very fact makes Kim run grave risks of suffering euch relapse unless he he endowed with a super-normal strength of resistance •gainst the peculiar atmosphere that mental hospitals are afflicted with. Through this, and oftier causes, there are many people coTifined in mental hospitals in Ntew Zealand whose cases for discharge would prove uineontrovertible if tested by any unprejudiced

bench of experte; and. some of these men have been lu'ld for long terms of years; not merely tor a month or two. Wl'V "are" they so heTnl? A dozen reasons might be adduced, and each •Me would convince certain cults; but to our mind the chief reason is that these isufferers Save not sufficient Friends (outside) to adlroeate the pa-

tients' rights to be set free. To whom then, shall such a sufferer appeal for ' discharge? He is entitled to write to the of Public Hospitals, and to seal his letter and have it despatched (unopened) by the Chief Medical Officer of the institution in which he is confined; but what layman ever committedi to mental hospittfl ever knew of this statutory right before his discharge or escape? Probably not five hundred in the wlhole dominion are aware of it; lawyers inclusive. It is "everybody's business; therefore nobody's" Further, the patient has the chance to put his ease j before 4 the Visiting Justices of the Peace. In an institution holding 000 or 1000 patients, fliow shall a patient, who is discontented with being incarcerated know that his oddi opportunity to seek the Visiting Justice's assistance has come? That visit is confined to part of one day, and if the ward has from 20 to 25 per cent of sane patients in it, and all of them desirous of being heard, how can one justice (and he usually a layman unacquainted with the true symptoms of insanity) d)o justice to all? Further, one patient's natural disposition of retirement might make him slow to press his claims at the exact five minutes of time during which tHe justice of the peace pays his monthly or two-monthly visit to that patient's ward. There are a dozem different reasons that amalgamate to result in men of re-established sanity being confined in mental hospitals long after they are entitled to discharge, some are stronger reasons thain those we have indicated, and any one of them carries weight. To quote one more: we would ask how can it be possible for three doctors to give sufficient individual attention to a thousand patients to allow of the. doctors passing full and fair judgment ui every case? The doctors (of necessity) must be guided by the reports of the attendants on the patients; *n<nd one attendant might regard as abnormal some patient's tendencies that another attend, nnt (move exprrienced) would consider only a minor and harmless eccentricity.

paving thus- cleared the way for oni main point, wo would draw the attent:on of members of Parliament to a paragraph in the annual report of Dr. Frank Hay, Inspector-General of Mental and other Hospitals in New ZeaVml. In this official pronouncement the* Inspector-Genera* seems to approve - tacitly, at least—of a suggestion put. forward by the district inspector for Seacliff (Otago) Mental Hospital (Mr Galloway) to the effect that there should be withdrawti Jrom the public the greatest protection that the Mental Defectives Act affords them against unfair detention of any one of their number. OVe say "the public' advisedly. for there is no surety, in these times of stress, that any man, however well balanced, will be immune for life from the risk of being certified "mentally defective"). Therefore the public 'as a whole, and their Parliamentary representatives in particular, should! regard the chief safeguard to which we now refer as one that should be maintained at all hazards: and that safeguard is the existing provision of the Mental Defectives Act which makes it necessary for a Stipendiary Magistrate to re-commit any escaped mental hospital patient who has been out of the keeping of the institution for three months or over. The district inspector whose report asks for the recision of this wise provision) must he concerned rrtore with the question of hospital expediency than that of individual liberty. He quotes fiv way of reason for the suggestion a difficu'ty occasioned through" the escape from Seaclilf of one patient who was not recaptured until three months or more had expired, but subsequently was reoomm'it'fced. Tt "may" be that a mental hospital was the fittest place for this man: hut on the other hand, tfiere are mein in these institutions (some few of whom have been held there for many years) whose mental abilities, sober deportment and unvarying normality aV.ke are good grounds for permanent discharge. Yet, for want 01 worldly influence,, they languish on and on. We write of what we know, ancl we mince no terms* We Rave no wish to court notoriety; no desire to gam wide publicity in our individual capacty. But we would: be false to, the duty every man owes to his fellow-beings, if having acquired by compulsion our per-. 6onal knowledge of such matters, and overcome for all time.(we say this assuredly) the risks, and the very reai terrors that beset manyi partiallyafflicted people for tlie whole term of thei; lives, we were to fail to indicate for the special protection of such people, 'as well as for prospective benefit of the whole public, tlie fact that graverisks lie before all. unfortunates who are iforced into mental liospitalffc Ihese dangers increase, for the publics last safeguard against. unjust detention in such places is now threatened. "VVe have spoken of sane men confined, in these hospitals. If the Minister in Charge of Public Hospitals desires any information regarding the sane patients to whom we refer he may have it, but we have no desire to foist ourselves upon him in this respect; it will suffice for the present if he will scrutinise closely the suggestion for amending (!) legislation to which, we have referred. There are sane men held in mental hospitals today whose only charace of freedom lies in breaking from their immurement. They Have grown old, friendless and: despondent in these pinccs. To escape from them i 6 difficult; Tiut if they <Io escape, and remain in safe hiding for three months, they are relatively free for all time; for surely it is obvious that the alleged lunatic' who can 60 conduct himself andi keep up his repute for three months 'amongst nor-

mal people has shown cause for ' extension of liberty. Yet' the mental hospital mouthpiece would have this provision of the Jaw altered! A humdred times rather should the Mental Defectives Act be kept on the Statute Book unaltered, with all its real imperfections, than that it should be remedied in some respect 6, andi made worse by undoing the wise provision that makes necessary a judicial recommittal of escaped patients'who have been at large for three months or over.