Hospital Boom

It looked as if everybody wanted to go to the hospital at once. In New York City, Dr. J. B. Stiefel, medical director of the Associated Hospital Service, complained that people were taking to hospital beds for colds, ingrown toenails, or simply to get a good night's sleep. Most of the 6,511 U.S. hospitals (not counting Army, Navy and Veterans Administration hospitals) had waiting lists.

Surveying 18 cities, the Modern Hospital reported overcrowding so bad that "beds scarcely have time to cool off between patients."

But last week harassed hospital staffs had good news: President Truman signed a bill committing the Government to spend $75,000,000 a year for the next five years to build hospitals. Aid will be apportioned among states according to need, must be matched 2-to-1 by local contributions. Total program: $1,125,000,000.

Doctors attribute current hospital overcrowding mainly to 1) an 8,000,000 increase in U.S. population since 1939, 2) a great boom in hospital insurance plans (nearly 27,000,000 members) and 3) a trend toward treating more & more diseases and delivering more & more babies in a hospital instead of at home. The biggest demand for hospital care is in cities. But the new building program will not be conducted on the principle that the squeaking axle gets the most grease. A major share of the federal funds will be used to build small hospitals and health centers in rural areas, since 40% of U.S. counties have no registered hospitals.

Hospital men think the minimum should be 4.5 beds for each 1,000 of population. Only a handful of states (e.g., New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, District of Columbia) have that many now; the nation's average is 3.5. To bring the whole U.S. up to standard will require adding 165,000 new beds in general hospitals, 60,000 in tuberculosis hospitals, 115,000 for mental and nervous patients (present total: 1,738,944).

But building new hospitals is only a start. The biggest problem will be to staff them; there are not nearly enough nurses. U.S. hospitals, critically short, need at least 30,000 more, have no idea where they will get them.

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