The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-04-09
City Councils Indication of
Piece Meal Plan Draws
Fire.
APPEALS TO PUBLIC
Asks Citizens to Visit InSti-
tuition to View Con-
ditionS.

IL IaFOrS pleCenedI enlargement VI
city hospital with completion of only
the power plant unit at once drew
from the city health board today
declaration:
1t is beyond human understand
ing how anyone with eyes for seeing
and vision for guidance can, after
visiting the hospital and diSpensary,
conceive any valid reason for delay
ing the plan Of construction as out
lined by the board of health
The board did not deliberately
take the council to task for the at
titude indicated in recent confer
ence and the announcement last
week that the council would receive
a bond issue for S530,000 for the
power plant unit.
The board did, however, issue a
strong statement in an effort to
arouse the public to the need for
adequate provisions for the hospital
at once.
Must Extend Work
The board contends that 81, ,921 900
must be expended at once and
directed its attorney formally to re-
quest the city controller to present
a request for a bond issue for this
amount to the council at a special
meeting Friday night.
This issue would provide for the
power plant, the S516,OO0 out-patient
and laboratory building and the two
ward units costing $875,000 The
council is expected to authorize at
least part of the program at the
regular meeting. Monday night.
DR.. Frederick E. Jackson, health
board president. supplemented the
boards statement with the asser-
ton:
1T is a pitiable condition Of af-
fairs when a department of govern
mental administration is compelled
to organize an irresistible moving
force before it can arouse public in
terest sufficient to protect the pub
lie welfare" pointing to the three
year effort of the board to get ac-
tion on the hospital program.
Statement Is Issued
The board invites the public to in
spect the hospital this week in its
statement:
The city hospital and dispensary
are the two chief units of the health
department of indianapolis for the
sick poor and will continue for all
time to come as such.
Every person. rich and poor,
should be vitally interested in his
municipal hospital. We wonder how
many citizens, rich or poor, know
that in case Of accident outside of
their own home the chances are
nine out of ten that a city hospital
ambulance will carry them first to
city hospital.
In most respects health is a pur-
Chasable quantity, yet there are
rumblings that Indianapolis cannot
afford to pay for her sick poor, The
real reputation of a city and of its
individual outstanding citizens is
not measured finally by the number
OF smoke stacks, by the number of
banks, by the parks, the large stores,
the churches, lodges, clubs, number
of millionaireS or geniuses, but by
the attitude of that city toward the
common people.
Picture of Conditions
"A child with scarlet fever
separated by a sheet of muslin from
a child with measles, whooping
cough, diptheria, erysipelas; a ward
built for twenty-eight sick people
crowded with forty-three to forty
nine patients; sick Negroes crowded
si-- to eight in a room meant for two
with a little basement window for
refreshing air; pSychopathic patients
who need quiet and no confusion,
much light, air, pleasant conditions
for restoration to mental health,
housed in basement ward
originally meant for repair shops,
are pictures for the contemplation
of those citizens interested either
for or against the poor, who are
cor pelled to use the city institution.
Along with those pictures also
may be viewed a barn-like fire trap
with creaky floors, plaster-less cell
ings. dingy rooms called the city
dispensary where the medical pro-
fession yearly donates to the tax
pavers in free service to the poor a
sum of money equal to hundreds OF
dollars.
Another picture might be that OF
the tax receipt were the medical
profession to become suddenly class
conscious. Still another picture
might be one comparing the out
patient department and the city
hospital of indianapolis to that OF
other cities of similar size and
wealth.
For nearly three years the board
OF health has appealed to the public
and to city governments to give the
poor Negro, the poor child sick with
contagion, the poor man and woman
with incurable tuberculosis slowing
but surely coughing his way to the
grave, a wholesome place COM
measurable with the Christian re-
ligion in which to pass from this
life into the eternal unknown.