Early discharge of schizophrenic and manic depressive patients before they are ready to cope with the world outside or have families who can help them is called deinstitutionalization. Because this is such a cumbersome word I prefer to call it premature discharge. Unfortunately almost all the discharges from psychiatric institutions in Canada are premature so we may as well drop the premature and simple call them discharges. In other words Canada, as well as S,he United States, had adopted a policy of discharging patients before they were ready. They followed the advice given to governments that it would be cheaper to treat patients in their own homes and that the results would be as good. There were many caveats such as that the patients discharged to lie community would be given equal fa- cilities after discharge. This reminds me of the equal policy in the United States when they dealt, with their black poplation many years ago. But governments were much more concerned with the costs than they were with the welfare of the patients, probably following the belief that the health of the patients was more properly addressed by the psychiatrists who were treating them.