Notes and News

The population of the State's 26 mental institutions, which declined during the war, has begun to resume its upward trend, Dr. Frederick MacCurdy, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, has reported, and he predicted larger increases in the future.

Population of the 20 State hospitals for the mentally ill, the five State schools for mental defectives and the one State institution for epileptics reached a total of 103,335 persons on May 1, 1946, Dr. MacCurdy said.

During the ten years prior to the war, the annual increase of patients averaged 3,478. Due to improved economic conditions and the withdrawal of large numbers of men and women from the State during the war, Dr. MacCurdy said the population of the institutions had actually decreased 547 during 1943 and 957 during 1944, but with the close of the war the trend was reversed and last year, instead of a decrease in the population of these institutions, there was an increase of 773.

Predicting that this annual increase will rise until it at least reaches the prewar level, Commissioner MacCurdy said that the reasons for his prediction were the return of war workers to the State and the return of veterans needing psychiatric care.

He stated that as of March 31, there were 2,024 ex-service patients of both World War I and II on the books of the civil State hospitals out of a total hospital population of 82,735 on that date.

“The number of patients who will remain in hospitals in future years depends not only on the balance of admissions and discharges but also upon the number who will be placed in family care or on a convalescent status,” said Commissioner MacCurdy. However, he foresees no great increase in the number eligible for convalescent care, and no unusual increase in the number of patients in family care, unless greater interest is shown by the public in providing this type of care.

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