This article in “The Examiner” news paper is appealing for donations of gifts for Patients at the Lachlan Park Mental Diseases Hospital so they can receive some of the basics at Christmas time. Calling for gifts from a sympathetic Tasmanian public was the order of the day when this article was written on the 13th November 1950 and sat well with in a Charity Model of Care which was predominant around the world at this time. This show how far we have/or haven’t come in the last 64 years as we now sit in a rights movement for people living with mental health issues or with an intellectual disability as set out by all the signatories of the World Health Organisation, part of the United Nations, which Australia is a signatory. The right to have a life that is free for someone else s benevolent actions based on sympathy is inscribed in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While there is a difference today as there was 64 years ago this article is part of the rich history that is important to record and needs to be read in the context of the ideology of the time and the good will of the Tasmanian’s who were moved and personally effected by the States Institution designed for the care and health provision of those people with disabilities and or mental health issues. Want to read more about the rights movement, social movement, medical model and the social movement? This simply website can explain the difference is a clear one page document. RIGHT CLICK HERE and open in a new window. It could be said that Willow Court/Royal Derwent Hospital closed down because there was a different approach from an emerging Social Model as opposed to the then current Medical discourse.
