FEEBLE-MINDED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 772, 19 September 1929, Page 7

FEEBLE-MINDED

NEED FOR HALF-WAY HOUSE SUB-NORMALITY AND CRIME THE SUWS Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Wed. The old question of a halfway house for the feeble-minded has been brought up once more in the House, Today the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, informed the Rev. Clyde Carr (Timaru) that the Governmetn had made a beginning with such a scheme by the opening of the Templeton Farm for juveniles. I The next step was legislation to make provision for elderly people. Mr. Carr asked: (1) Whether the present Government has considered the desirability of placing control of mental hospitals in the hands of hospital boards? (2) Whether any provision is being made for a home for feeble-minded adults who are often in and out of prison on short sentences? (3) How long the establishment of the present experimental psychological clinic in Wellington is to precede the establishment of similar clinics elsewhere? (4) Whether a woman social worker attached to the clinic receives an adequate salary? During the winter, said Mr. Carr, Mr. PI. P. Lawry, S.M., sentenced to one month’s imprisonment a man named Pachnatz, said by the police to be physically and mentally weak, and in June last one Charlotte Applin, mother of at least nine sub-normal children and herself hopelessly feeble-minded, was again, as she had been many times previously, sentenced to three months’ gaol because she was homeless and unable to obtain employment. Mr. Stallworthy replied: (1) The present Government has not considered the desirability of placing the control of mental hospitals in the hands of hospital boards. (2) Yes; the whole question is one of great complexity, but a start has already been made in the direction indicated by the opening of the Templeton Farm for juveniles. It is proposed to submit legislation this session to extend some provision to elderly people. (3) It is intended to extend psychological clinics to other centres as soon as possible. (4) It is considered that the social service worker receives adequate salary. MENTAL PATIENTS TOTAL NUMBER OF 4,594 MAJORITY N.Z. BORN (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Today. Native-born New Zealanders form the bulk of the mental hospital population, numbering 2,948, against 1,646 other British-born patients, according to a return tabled in the House of Representatives today. The British-born population of New Zealand totals 1,381,214. There are comparatively few foreigners in the asylums, and 17 Asiatics only. The return shows 211 non-British permanent patients out of a total of 8,689 in the country. The number of persons of foreign birth is 208, and the total number of persons of foreign birth in the Dominion is 19,138. Naturalisation gives half of these British nationality. The number of British-born persons, including natives of India, is 4,604. In the mental hospitals there are two Indians, eight Chinese, and seven other Asiatics. The number of Indians in New Zealand is 1,049, Chinese 2,947, and other Asiatics 1,039.