MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 September 1920, Page 2

MENTAL HOSPITALS.

QUESTIONS OF SANITY

(Our Parliamentary Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 4. Mr Lysnar (Gisborne) told the House this.afternoon that people were detained in Mental Hospitals '-unnecessarily. He himself had been forced' to threaten extreme measures in order to secure the release of n man who was of sound a mind. He suggested the appointment of an independent Board to examine patients and determine whether or not they were julstLy held. The decision ought not to rest entirely with the of asylums if they mice became inmates.

Several other, members endorsed this view. They suggested’that Government should establish half-way houses, where people who needed skilled attention could be treated and observed without being admitted to Mental Hospitals and associated with real lunatics. If Government could not provide such accommodation, it should permit private persons to open homes. Hon Parr, in reply, depreciated any suggestion that people were held in Mental Hospitals' needlessly. The Medi- , cal Superintendents were highly trained conscientious men, who had no interest at all in detaining; inmates. The relatives were often not competent to judge in such cases and it would be a very wrong thing to create a false impression in their minds.. He would not care to establish private asylums which had given rise to terrible abuses in. past days. * The Minister added that relatives or friends of any inmate of a Mental Hospital had the legal right to appeal to a Magistrate and produce medical or other evidence. The Department was already arranging to.open special institutions for mild eases.