Special Provisions As To Mental Health Services
49.-(1) The functions of the Board of Control under the enactments specified in the Eighth Schedule to this Act, being administrative functions relating to-
(a) the licensing of houses, the registration of hospitals and the approval of nursing homes and other places for the reception of persons suffering from mental,
illness as private patients;
(b) ) the certification of institutions and houses and the approval of homes for the reception of mental defectives;
(c) the superintendence of the administration by local health authorities of their powers and duties under the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938;
(d) certain other administrative matters arising under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts, 1890 to 1930, and the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938,
shall be transferred to the Minister.
(2) The officers of the Board of Control, other than the Commissioners, the secretary and inspectors, shall be transferred to the Ministry of Health, and sections twenty-three and twenty-four of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913 (which provide for the appointment of officers by the Board and as to their disqualification) shall cease to apply to any officers other than the Commissioners, secretary and inspectors.
(3) The services of such officers, other than the Commissioners, secretary and inspectors, as the Board of Control may require for the purpose of the exercise of the functions not transferred to the Minister shall be provided by the Minister.
(4) All property held by the Board of Control, the Minister of Works or the Prison Commissioners for the purposes of any institution for defectives of violent or dangerous propensities established by the Board of Control under section thirty five of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, shall be transferred to and vest in the Minister by virtue of this Act, but any institution designated by the Minister for such defectives shall be under the management of the Board of Control and the provisions of this Act relating to Regional Hospital Boards and Hospital Management Committees shall not apply thereto.
(5) An additional medical Commissioner may be appointed to the Board of Control, and accordingly section eleven of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930 (which provides that the Board of Control is to consist of a chairman and not more than four Commissioners of which two shall be medical Commissioners) shall have effect subject to the amendments specified in Part I of the Ninth Schedule to this Act.
(6) Section twelve of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930 (which makes provision for the administrative business of the Board) shall cease to have effect.
(7) This section shall come into force on the appointed day.
50.-(1) As from the appointed day, the provisions of the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts, 1890 to 1930, and the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938, and the other enactments specified in Part I of the Ninth Schedule to this Act shall be amended to the extent specified in that Part, and the provisions of the said Acts and the other enactments specified in Part II of that Schedule shall be repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Part, such amendment and repeal being required-
(a) in consequence of the provision by the Minister, instead of local authorities, of hospitals for mental patients and institutions for defectives;
(b) for making it unlawful to detain persons of unsound mind and mental defectives in workhouses;
(c) for the purpose of assimilating the procedure for securing the reception into and discharge from mental hospitals of private patients and other patients, respectively, and
(d) generally for bringing the provisions of the said Acts into conformity with the provisions of this Act.
(2) Nothing in the aforesaid repeals and amendments or in the provisions of this Act shall affect any order, certificate, licence, registration, approval, regulation or other thing, made, issued, granted or done under any provision of any enactment specified in the Ninth Schedule to this Act, if it was in force immediately before the appointed day and could have been made, issued, granted or done under that provision as amended by this Act or under any corresponding provision of this Act, and any such order, certificate, licence, registration, approval, regulation or other thing shall be deemed to have been duly made, issued, granted or done under that provision as so amended or under that provision of this Act.
(3) Where immediately before the appointed day any person is, by virtue of an order made under subsections (3) and (4) of section twenty-four of the Lunacy Act, 1890, or section nineteen of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, detained in any workhouse or part of a workhouse within the meaning of the Lunacy Act, 1890, or any hospital or part of a hospital approved for the purposes of section nineteen of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, which is transferred to the Minister by virtue of this Act and is or forms part of a hospital designated by him as a mental hospital, the said order shall have effect as if it were an order made on the appointed day under section sixteen of the Lunacy Act, 1890, for the detention of that person in that mental hospital.
(4) Where immediately before the appointed day any person is, by virtue of an order made under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts, 1890 to 1930, or the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938, detained in any workhouse or part of a workhouse within the meaning of the Lunacy Act, 1890, which is not transferred to the Minister by virtue of this Act, the order shall, for a period of six months, continue to be an authority for his detention therein, and, while he is, so detained, the provisions of the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts, 1890 to 1930; or of the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938, as the case may be, shall continue to apply to him as if this Act had not passed, and the said order shall also be an authority for his transfer to and detention in any mental hospital or, as the case may be, institution for defectives, vested in the Minister, and shall have effect, in the case of detention in a mental hospital, as if it were an order made on the appointed day under section sixteen of the Lunacy Act, 1890.
51.-(1) Section twenty of this Act (which requires local health authorities to submit proposals to the Minister for carrying out their duties under certain provisions of Part III of this Act and to carry out those duties in accordance with the proposals) shall apply with respect to the duties of local health authorities under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts, 1890 to 1930,and the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938.
(2) Where a local health authority makes arrangements with any voluntary organisation for the performance of any services in connection with the duties of the local health authority under the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1938, the local health authority may, with the approval of the Minister, contribute to that voluntary organisation.