MENTAL PATIENTS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1925, Page 3

MENTAL PATIENTS

HOSPITAL THE ATM ENT. DUNEDIN, December IS.

Jn .support- of his contention that special rooms should be provided in the Dunedin Hospital for mental patients, Dr Falconer, Superintendent, I furnished an elaborate report to the I Hospital Board. This report has been referred to a committee and the honorary medical staff for a report. Dr Falconer stated that there was no good medical ground why a patient with mental disorder should not go to a general hospital and l>e admitted to a psychiatric ward unless his condition was disturbing to other patients. To have all mental patients sent to a hospital some distance from the general hospital was to continue the evil tradition of maintaining the artificial division between mental and other disorders. Such artificial separation meant that patients did not get such good consultation facilities as general hospital patients. It also meant attaching a special stigma so that patients with mild disorders were not brought for treatment and only came under treatment at au advanced stage. Moreover, the separation also prevented the medical and nursing staffs from becoming familial' with the problems of such disorders. Amongst the advantages of the proposed rooms would he facilities for complete pathological, surgical and hio-ehcmieal investigation of individual eases and also a more satisfactory means ot educating students, not only in mental disorders, hut also in the psychological aspects of everyday practice.