Mentally Weak to be Studied and Cared for

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 603, 4 March 1929, Page 14

Mentally Weak to be Studied and Cared for

New Board Prepares for Important Works A GREAT OPPORTUNITY ( Special to THE SUN) WELLINGTON, Saturday. The board set up by the Government under the Mental Defectives Act will meet within the next fortnight, stated Dr. T. G. Gray, Director-General of Mental Hospitals, to-day. Much work is to be done, and until the board holds its first meeting and members exchange their views, naturally, a certain number of issues will remain obscure. Dr. Gray announces that the clinics necessary under the Act will be set up in various centres at an early date, and that from that moment the board will be able to pursue its first big task, the examination and consideration of the cases of backward children and the compilation of the register of mentally defective boys and girls. Each clinic will consist of a psychiatrist, a teacher, and a social service worker, and their duty will be to discover the circumstances surrounding each case and report to the board. The social service worker will be selected for her experience and tact, the teacher will be able to report upon the child’s state of education and the possibilities of -further education. while the psychiatrist will make the necessarv examinations. The notion that there is a shortage of psychiatrists in New Zealand is vigorously combated by Dr. Gray. At present in the department, he says, there are eight psychiatrists who have taken their degrees in Edinburgh or London Universities, while a ninth man is on leave and abroad at the moment.

“On receipt of the report of the clinic the case of the children will be considered by the board,” said Dr. Gray. “It is provided that unless the three medical members of the board agree, no action shall he taken; and that even if they do agree they must also be among the majority on the board. Thus there should be ample safeguards. The task is an enormous one, and the board will be responsible for training the children up to the height of their ability and for obtaining work for them, work as good as they are able to perform. I imagine that there will be two places for the training of children who are taken charge of by the new authority, one for each island. They will be of the village hospital type, and there will be no walls and no flavour of the institution about them.

“Here we have a great chance to do work not only for ourselves, but, by virtue of our very complete statistical system, for the whole world. When 1 was in Boston I was struck by the fact that they had managed to discover and deal with only a fraction of the total number of mentally deficient children. Here we have no such difficulties. The work is vital and urgent, and I think that we may expect to find a great difference in another 20 years.”