TREATMENT OF INSANITY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4310, 29 August 1921, Page 4

TREATMENT OF INSANITY

IN EARLY STAGES.

Dr. Hay’s proposals for the early treatment of insanity come only on the outskirts of the - questions with which the Hospitals v Commission was set up to deal, but they deserve attention. If insanity is to be treated with beneficial results to the patients it is important that the treatment should be begun while the disease is in its earliest stages. In the old days the idea was simply to lock up the mentally affected in asylums when their disease developed to such an extent that they became an unendurable nuisance to their relations or ~tb the public. We have moved a long way since then', but we have still far to go in reaching new cases while their insanity is still merely incipient and amenable to treatment. The voluntary boarding system is excellent for those with meaiis, but something more is needed. Dr. Hay suggests that the Government institutions at Rotorua and' Hanmer for shell shock and other mental cases amoiig the returned soldiers should be opened also to civilian patients. This is a step that should be possible without a heavy addition to present expenditure. More important is the suggestion that an out-patients’ department for mental cases should be established at the chief public hospitals, with doctors from the mental hospital staffs in attendance. This would be even more inexpensive as an initial step. Itjwould encourage those in need of treatment to apply for it, and with doctor and patient once brought together public opinion would soon insist that curative work should not be hampered for lack of any necessary further facilities.