The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-09-22
The County Hospital As an Educa.
tional Question.

tional Question.
At the November election this year
| the voters of Decatur county will
have an opportunity to vote for or
against the erection of a county hos
pital The cost not to exceed $751;
900.
The question of county hospital
is new one and purely educational
one. Probably the first question of
any of our state or county institu-
tions caused as much comment as
the county hospital question will
cause. We have in Iowa a number of
institutions maintained by the state,
the Deaf and Dumb School, School
for the Blind, School for the Feeble
minded and each and every one Of
these institutions, when they We're
first brought into public notice were
not favorably received. But, is there
anyone of them today that we would
be willing to do without? Is it not
the fact that when the rural mail
delivery and rural telephone were in
their trial stage, that they received
much adverse criticism.
The first question that the con-
scientious voter should decide in his
mind, is, do we need such an lnstl-
tuition as a county hospital?
At the present time there is not
county hospital of any kind between
Ottumwa and ST. Joe, or nearer than
Des Moines on the Osceola branch.
Each year there are from thirty
to forty people, who are compelled to
20 away from their homes in Decatur
county, to one of these hospitals or
some other hospital even more dis
tant.
Consider the loss of time, the ex-
ira expense and the hazardous risk
of moving the patient so far, includ-
ing the expenses and the loss of time
of those who accompany them.
1t is a well known fact that people
expect a greater degree of skill in
surgery, medicine or osteopathy In
the city, than he would in his own
community. He leaves home some
times to consult a surgeon or ply
sician, whom he has never met be-
fore and it may be that surgeon or
physicians first case of that kind.
At the same time the skilled ply
sician in their own community may
be graduate of the same school and
even of the same class. Ii your ply
sician takes you to the city to be op-
Grated on, what credit does he get IN
his own community if the operation
is successful? Very little indeed. But
| if the patient does not recover, who
gets the blame? Your physician OF
course. How much injury does it do
your city physician? Practically none.
Besides with a county hospital you
do not have to depend on your local
skill, but you may have any physician
or surgeon that you wish.
You will meet some people, who
will tell you that they have seen the
time when they would have given al
most anything they had to have had
had access to hospital near home.
Suppose that if this county hos
| pital is erected it would save one life
a year, do you think it would pay?
and, how do you know but what that
one life may be in your own family!
If you knew it would be, certainly
YOU would vote for it and believe it
might benefit you if you or your fam
lily were afflicted, would it not be
right for you to vote for it for the
benefit of your neighbor? Are we
| not to some extent our brothers
keeper?
Last year the Iowa legislature gave
$4,000, begrudgingly to use for the
prevention of tuberculosis, disease
that claims one-sixth of all those
who die in the state, and that same
legislature voted $4,000 to build a
hog pavilion at the state fair
grounds. Suppose that veterinary
would agree that if the farmers of
Decatur county would pay him tax
of the same amount as the hospital
tax that he would guarantee to re-
duce the death rate of their stock
twenty per cent, how many farmers
and stockmen would not jump at the
chance? And if there should be a
county hospital erected in Decatur
county the per cent of curable
diseases saved would probably be as
great. The loss of life last year in
this county was probably fifty per
cent less than it was, twenty or twen-
ty-five years ago. And why this saw
| ing of human life and what is it due
to but to education alsng these lines?
Hygere as taught by your school
teachers. The excellent work of your
physicians and trustees in quarantin-
ing these contagious diseases.
Yes. The County Hospital is an
Educational Question.
Shall we advance or go back?
| Rlmley-All