MENTAL HOSPITALS.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 279, 18 September 1918, Page 5

MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Minister’s Office,

Mental Hospitals Department, Wellington, 31st August, ujiM. Dear Madam, — I am in receipt of your letter of the J4th instant with reference to the question of spec ia) institutions for mild or temporary cases of mental. derangement. 1 beg to assure you that this matter has received my careful consideration, and nothing hut want of funds caused by the war has prevented the cstab lishment of one or more institutions on the lines suggested by your Union. I have pleasure in informing you that 1 have now given instruction* to the Mental Hospitals Department t<> endeavour to secure th° lease of a suitable building in either Christ church or Wellington where cases of the class to which you spec ially refer may be dealt with. As you know, 1 have long held the view that there ought to be a place prior to entrance to mental hospitals, where persons who are temporarily deranged can be nursed back to mental health, and I hope now to evolve a scheme* bv which one or more of these places can be* established at small expense, in order that it may be thoroughly tested. Thanking your Union for it** sui>|x>rt. —Yours faithfully, G. W. RUSSELL, Minister in Charge of Mental I fospitals. Miss C Henderson, Corresponding Secretary. W.C.T.U., 26. Tui Street, Fendalton, Christchurch.