MENTAL HOSPITALS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Report of the Board of Control for 1935, just published, quotes with satisfaction the increasing number of voluntary patients, as answering the frequent charge that no one would enter mental hospitals except under compulsion.
Such satisfaction is misplaced. Many " voluntary " patients arc induced by subterfuge to enter what they do not realise is a mental hospital till too late. Once there, they inay be threatened with certification if they give notice to leave. And, although no one wishes to keep a pauper patient if his friends will take care of him, the private patient, whose relatives are Willing to pay (or make him pay for himself) is not so lucky, and may be much more easily certified.
The method of " voluntary" entry is chiefly a safeguard for the family doctor. Once inside, it is easy to find convincing mental symptoms in almost anyone.
By this method also the neurotic and uncertifiable patient is induced to go to large, mass-treated institutions quite un- suitable for him. And, as the number of " voluntary " admissions increases, those in authority sit back and say that mental hospitals must therefore be all they should be ; and that, since the 1930 Act has started, creakily and inadequately to work, nothing further need he legislated for the next thirty
years.—! am, Sir, &c., Joss; STURGES. Buxton House, All Stretton, Shrops.
Previous page
