Mental Patients Will Be Moved to Tourist Hotels

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1942, Page 4

Mental Patients Will Be Moved to Tourist Hotels

Wellington, Aug. 29. About 200 patients have already been transferred to other institutions from the Porirua mental hospital. which was seriously damaged by recent earthquakes in the southern part of the North Island. Close on 600 patients still at Porirua have yet to be accommodated elsewhere, and they are to be transferred either to other institutions or to the Wairakei Hotel. Chateau Tongariro or Rotoroa Island. The Director-General of Mental Health, Dr. T. G. Gray, said .that patients would be sent to Wairakei in the next few days and to Chateau Tongariro about the beginning of October. Only patients fit for parole would go to these two places. Transfers of patients fit for parole from other mental hospitals in the North Island would also be made to Wairakei and the Chateau, and their places would be taken by patients from Porirua. Only women would be sent to the Chateau and Wairakei— 200 to the former and 100 to the latter. After the first earthquake. on June 24, said Dr. Gray, 50 female patients from Porirua were sent to Kingseat and 50 to Christchurch. Since the second earthquake, early this month, 100 male patients had been sent to Stoke, Nelson, and another 100 male patients were to go to Rotoroa Island.