MENTAL PATIENTS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 June 1931, Page 5

MENTAL PATIENTS

SEH'TOUS POSITION - in ENGLAND. NO ROOM FOR 50,000 DEFECTIVE'S. LONDON, June 7. ‘■‘Roughly speaking,” according to the latest report of the Board of Control, “even if it were possible under the Local Government Act to use all the beds in poor law hitherto occupied bv defectives it is estimated that there will still remain about 00,000 defectives, mostly of the young and trainable class, for whom no accommodation is available.

“Hardly a day passes," the board says, “\wthout some appeal from local authorities to us to inform them where a vacancy can be found for an urgent case, and the only reply we can make is that no vacancies exist." .An authority on the subject (says the Daily Telegraph) expressed the opnvon that there are no more than 25 beds vacant in mental institutions in the whole country. No doubt the root cause of this is the increase in notifiable insanity in recent years. The number of notified insane persons under care of England and M ales at the beginning of 1930 was 142,387, an increase of 1307 over the preceding year. This was however, much b’elow the average increase of 2167 for the five years ended December, 1929. aged DEFECTIVES. The significance of such figures ought not to be 'exaggerated. The increased

number of people notified, insane has. the Board of Control pointed oilt, no necessary connection with the incidence of mental disorders in the general popu lation, being merely : the increase shown by the excess of the admission over the combined deaths and discharges. “Moreover, the term “mehtally; defective” is much more inclusive than th> old and now discarded description oi lunatic, and this fact has its share in the grave overcrowded conditions of the institutions. •It is further, pointed out-that in conformity with the changed views regarding the care of the mentally afflicted, the in - mates of mental hospitals are nowaday: so well cared for that many of them live to be a great age. The problem would be alleviated for the moment if these aged bedridden people who just come within the official classification of mentally defective were removed to homes for the infirm.