MENTAL HOSPITALS

Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1927, Page 4

MENTAL HOSPITALS

INCREASE IN’ NUMBER OF PATIENTS. WELLINGTON. Aug. 31. At tho end of last year there were 3107 patients on the registers of the mental hospitals oT the Dominion, according to the annua,! report of the Department, which was presented to Parliament to-day. The total is an increase of 33(5 on that of the previous year. The official figures show a recovery rate of 30 per cent on tho admissions, which is regarded as fairly satisfactory and as representing as high a standard of success as is obtained in other comparable English-speaking countries. The report says that this does not mean that more need not and cannot be done for the insane in New \Zealad. especially in the way of prevention and on improved early care and treatment of incipent insanity, but it will bo some years before the full effect of the recent improvements, which have been, asked for find undertaken, can be brought to full fruition. Tho widespread popular prejudice against resorting to institutions for the care and treatment of persons suffering from mental breakdown until they have became positively dangerous or .unmanageable, cannot bo overcome in <New Zealand or anywhere else until tho public has been brought to realise that early competent treatment in special institutions is more imperatively necessary in the case of incipient mental disease than in any other form of illness.