The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-03
POLITICAL PULL
BACKS DOCTORS
NEGLECT OF ILL
Belated Report Ignores
Plight of Workers

Nine months after charges of brutal
mistreatment of patients and workers
at Kings County Hospital amazed the
population of New York, last May, a
report by Commissioner of Accounts,
James A. Higgins to Mayor Walker
after an investigation of the hospital
shows that no action has been taken
by city officials for the Improvement
Of the inhumane conditions there.
Nor does the report indicate that any
action is planned.
Brutal religious bigtory against
Jewish internes and Jewish patients
of small means, rotten food for the
poverty stricken patients, prepared by
diseased cooks, and the appointment
thru political influence of many I'M
fit nurses, unsympathetic and neglect
full to the working class patients, are
but few of the conditions brought
to light in the report.
Discrimination Shown.
The hazing of three Jewish internes
there last May and charges by work
ing class patients that they had been
Disseminated against in receiving
treatment led to the investigation and
the report. Kings County Hospital is
the institution furnished by New York
City for the free treatment of the
workers of Brooklyn and environs.
They cannot pay the stiff excessive
fees demanded by the non-municipal
hospitals. The institution has many
times been condemned as firetrap
and the handling of the patients has
bordered on the brutal. Kings County
Hospital has been called the Belle
vue" of Brooklyn.
Food Unsanitary.
Due to favoritism, evidently of a
political nature, the report points out,
many unfit nurses, unsympathetic and
callous in their attention to the pen
niless patients needs, have been
placed on the staff of the Kings Coun-
ty Hospital. And internes, also picked
by process of favoritism, are either
incapable or industrious of rendering
decent medical service to the patients.
The internes, backed by pull" have
been allowed extraordinary license in
neglecting their assignments, Com
missioner Higgins report reveals.
The food at the hospital is of the
poorest kind. 1t is prepared by dis
eased and physically unfit workers.
Indifference on the part of officials
has rendered the dietary department
Of the hospital, one of it's main func-
tons, staguantly ineffective, the re-
port further states.
Night Service Lax.
The management of the stewards
department in the distribution Of hos
pital supplies is incompetent ard
wasteful. Emergency medical service
when serious cases are brought in is
extremely lax. At night the means
for securing immediate attention for
patients in moribund state are in
sufficient.
Ambulance chasers, as shyster law
yers are known, are afforded the
greatest possible opportunities to
reach the patients, it is asserted in
the report. These unscrupulous law
yers trick the workers injured on their
jobs into signing agreements with
them by which most Of the money
awarded the worker in court falls into
the lawyers hands.
Compensation Lost.
The report also charges that the
preparation Of reports Of accidents
to workers, called for by the compen-
sation court, is handled in loose
and unprofessional manner in Kings
County Hospital. Without these re-
ports being promptly made out by
the doctor attending the worker, the
latter is often delayed and sometimes