DETENTION OF MENTAL CASES -
SIR,—Like your correspondent Pharos I have read the account of the Adjournment Debate on Peter White- head and Rampton Hospital with a considerable measure of gloom, not unmixed with personal sym- pathy for Ministers who are still under the exigencies of defending an out-of-date and discredited system.
What can we learn for the future?
'There is no doubt at all,' said Mr. Richard Thomp-
son, Parliamentary Secreiary to the Minister of Health, 'that Whitehead was mentally defective, judged by all orthodox medical standards. No fewer than twelve doctors have examined him on separate occasions, and have certified him as 'defective within the mean- ing of the Mental Deficiency Acts.'
What are orthodox medical standards for mental defectiveness? As I pointed out in my recent letter in your columns, they lack definition. Only one thing is reasonably certain : that once a doctor's opinion is given which authorises detention, orthodox medical standards demand that other doctors support it., 'Five medical reports were received upon this lady's mental condition while she was under care in hospi- tal,' stated Mr. Walker-Smith, in reply to a request by myself for the review of the case of a former certified patient. Why stop at small numbers? Mr. Walker-Smith or Mr. Thompson could just as easily have obtained fifty doctors. How many, incidentally, of Mr. Thompson's twelve doctors were, in addition, on the staff of Rampton Hospital; and consequently, as employees of the Board of Control, signatories of a declaration under the Official Secrets Act?—Yours House of Commons, SW 1
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