HOSPITAL CONFERENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 4, 29 June 1911, Page 8

HOSPITAL CONFERENCE

IMPORTANT RESOLUTIONS. By Telsgraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night; At the Hospitals Conference to-day, Dr. Valintine, Inspector-General, read a paper on "The Incipient Mental and Delirium Tremens Patient,' urging that such cases should be treated in hospitals in their early stages, as they could often be restored to health without having a stigma to bear which attached to the patient themselves and their families from the fact of their being in mental hospitals. I The conference did not agree with Dr. Valintine, and passed a resolution recommending the Government to maka provision in those centres where required for receiving houses in connection with mental hospitals for the treatment of incipient mental and delirium tremens patients. Other resolutions passed were to the following effect: That''the Government be requested to introduce legislation giving hospital and charitable aid boards power of detention over inmates of benevolent homes, hospitals, sanatoria or other institutions under the boards' control in cases where the Health Department considers it necessary in the interests of the community. That legislation be passed as soon as possible transferring control of contagious diseases directly from the Department of Native Affairs to the public health officers. That iu order to conserve the Maori race, the question of maternity and infant mortality should be dealt with directly by responsible officers of hospital and charitable aid boards, and as a further guarantee of this the Native race should be 'brought with Europeans under the Registration' Act, and this should be applicable, not only to deaths but also to births and marriages. That homes for indigent imbeciles and destitute blind children mentaly able to benefit hy being taught to read under the Braille or any other system be provided by the State.

That this conference affirms the necessity of founding State schools for defective girls similar to that established for boys at Otekaike, and State homes with powers of detention for women of feeble character whose proclivities are a source of danger to the community both from a physiological and a moral point of view.

That the conference recommends the Inspector-General of Hospitals to circularise all hospital 'boards with regard to the successful working or otherwise of the eight hours' system, as applied to nurses.

The cKiference resumes to-morrow