VPRS 18142 Admission and Discharge Register of Patients (Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital)

Full description

This series consists of volumes detailing patient admissions and discharges at Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital (VA 2846). Each admission was assigned a unique sequential number.

The Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital was a unit within the Mont Park Mental Hospital. It was opened in 1971 to provide accommodation for those patients who required only short term diagnosis and treatment. The majority of the recorded stays are short term, usually a few days or a few weeks.

Information recorded in the registers includes:
- Type of Admission (V, R, A, J, S)
- No. in Order of Admission (by gender) (sequential number)
- Date of Admission
- Full Name
- Secretary's Signature
- Date of Birth
- Marital State
- Occupation
- Previous Place of Abode
- Religion
- Form of Mental Disorder
- Bodily Condition
- Superintendent's Signature
- Date of Death, Discharge
- Secretary's Signature
- Discharge Category.

The volumes each have an index at the beginning arranged alphabetically by patient surname, with separate lists by gender.

The format of the Register of Patients which was specified in a schedule to the Lunacy Statute and succeeding legislation, changed little until the proclamation of the Mental Health Act 1959 in 1962. The record then became officially known as the Register of Patients and Discharge Register and included information about the types of admission. The following five types of admission were specified under sections 41 to 49 of the Mental Health Act 1959:

Voluntary Boarders (V) were those who entered the hospital at their own request or, if under the age of 16 at the request of a parent or guardian and on the opinion of a medical practitioner.

Recommended (R) and Approved (A) Patients. A person could be admitted upon the recommendation set out in a prescribed form, of a medical practitioner who had examined the person. As soon as possible after admission the superintendent of the hospital was required to examine the patient and either approve the recommended admission or discharge the patient.

Judicial Admissions (J). Upon information provided on oath before a justice that a mentally ill person was not receiving proper care, or could not support himself/herself or had committed an offence and after examination by two medical practitioners, an order could be made for the person to be admitted to or detained in a mental hospital.

Security Patients (S) were those who had been detained in a gaol but were transferred to a mental hospital upon being determined to be mentally ill.

Partway through Unit 7, a notation is made that the new Mental Health Act has come into force on 1 October 1987. Thereafter, the sequential admission number resets at number 1.