PROBLEMS OF MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1739, 21 July 1917, Page 3

PROBLEMS OF MENTAL HOSPITALS.

There is a pathetic paragraph in the Mental Hospitals Department report which gives rise to some amount of consideration. It says: During last year 100 patients over sixty years of age were admitted, and in 118 of these the principal assigned cause of insanity was senility —premature in some, but in others the ordinary decay of old age impairing the mental faculties. “A large number of these old people merely needed a little oversight and nursing, and might well have spent the evening of their days at home, provided some one were at hand to perform dutiful and kindly ollices (says the Minister in Charge, Hon. (1. W. Bussell). 1 am not going to make any comment on filial ingratitude —one does not know the actual slate of things in this collage or that house, and maybe the aged mentally infirm parent is parted with sorrowfulU —hut I consider it necessary to point out that many such patients are sent to us from old people's homes and benevolent institutions, and that in some of (he eases thence received wo have noted on admission symptoms .which were the prelude of the final dissolution. Wo lake over the care of this (-lass, as indeed we must; it cannot be provided for entirely by home care or entirely in institutions under Charitable Aid Boards; but a certain amount of; commonsense should be exercised with regal'd In those that can and those that cannot be cared for properly outside mental hospitals!’ It is useless to plead, "If doctors certify, then our responsibility ends.” Of course, doctors will certify, and very properly so, if the authorities at the home stale they have no facilities for dealing with the ease, hut ib(> responsibility of sueh institutions doe,-- not end there, because such institutions should provide facilities for dealing with ordinary physiological decay. Jl is not right that such patients should lie filling our infirmary beds. The mailer of providing special accommodation is under eonsideralion now-; hut before entering upon the expenditure and accepting the policy involved, one would like to know whether the eharitahle-aid inslilntions cannot carry oul Hie nursing, care, and supervision of Ihe aged who are menially infirm; and, if they eannol, 1 am of opinion that (he hoards should pay this department for the mainlenanee of patients transferred from these institutions.”