asked the Minister for Health if he will state in respect of the total number of patients in mental hospitals the number who are hospitalised for (1) five years or more (2) two to five years (3) one to two years and (4) under one year.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Mental Hospital Patients.
49.
The statistics requested by the Deputy are not yet available. The Medico-Social Research Board is currently processing the returns from the census of mental hospital populations for 1971 and expects to have the figures available in the near future.
I am conscious that this data should be available on a regular basis and am taking steps to ensure that it is in the future.
When these figures are being prepared perhaps the Minister would consider the case of the alcoholic patient who has been signed in by relatives and who may have to stay there for four or five years. It would be hard to classify such a patient, and I cannot see how a person can be classified as an alcoholic if he has been locked up for five years——
I cannot see any relation between the Deputy's supplementary and the question.
It is a period of time in hospital.
It refers to mental patients.
They are classified as mental patients.