The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-05
STORK'S PRICE
DROPS; BABIES
At CUT PRICES
Birth Bill Is SIaShed rs
Per Cent in -Four Years,
Survey Shows.

Papa Stork has trimmed his bill
% per cent within the last four
years.
The depression bird, the mythical
bearer Of babies, and not the ZOO
species, has been forced to cut the
high cost Of rattle-users in the same
proportion that the maker of rattles
has had to do.
Mary Hoosier born in 1923 cost
Just 25 per cent more than Johnny
Hoosier of 1882.
And the decrease in the cost of
beginning life had to slump with
The stock ticker and wages, if city
hospitals and doctors hoped to have
patients to treat
One hospital, in fact, faced with
the increasing number Of maternity
cases being cared for in homes, re-
sorted to the bargain baby rate.
Prospective fathers were given the
choice of three rates, $40, $45 and
s55, for hospital service for ten days
Hospital Rates SIashed
The $40 rate is for a bed in
four bed ward, the $45 in two-bed
ward and the $55 rate in private
room. The fees include care of the
baby, laboratory and delivery room
expenses
Four years ago, in the same hos
pital, the cheapest day rate for the
ward beds were $3.50 to 81 and
the patient, after paying for the
bed, was compelled TO pay the addi-
tional 50 fee for laboratory and $40
for the delivery room.
Under the bargain rate children
are born to the tune of hospital
cost of $40, instead Of approx
imately $50.
The Indiana State Medical Asso- |
citation declares that obStretricians,
experts in the care of maternity
cases, have reduced their fees 70
per cent
Doctors Fees Arc Less
The stork's Man Friday, who gave
a new infant lusty pat for $50
fee in 1928, is doing the same job
in 1882 for $35 and in some cases
below that amount.
The saying, the rich always pay,
is a fair barometer of prices in the
baby mart. The silver spooned babies
cost as high as $500 fee. where
complications set in, for the wealthy
parents.
The scale is balanced, however,
in that the charity work Of the in
dividual physicians, the bills he
never collects is evened by higher
fees to those who can afford to pay
collections. they're terrible.
AYERS one physician and even with
our prices cut,
Collections Are Bad O,
Where two weeks formerly was
considered the average time limit
in maternity cases in hospitals, now
doctors are permitting patients to
return to homes within ten days.
And it is because of this ten-day
time limit that the bargain baby
price was fixed in one hospital.
While all hospitals of the city and
physicians report decrease in costs
to patients, the nursing profession
has kept to its old depression
rate Of 81 a day for awaiting the
stork, whether in a hospital or a
home.
The regular nursing rate is Sc
day in hospital and 81 in the
home for the majority of Illnesses.
Nurses Cut Salaries
Numerous reports of nurses work
ing below the state associations
fixed charge have been received.
Nurses have suffered from lack OF
employment due to prospective par
ents depending on the hospitals
staff for attendance at the bedside.
Charity wards in'the city hospital,
with their beds continually in use,
are mute testimonials to unemploy-
ment and inability of former work
ers to pay for hospital care, let
alone physicians and nurses.
But, undaunted, Papa Stork keeps
on presenting his bills, depression or
no depression, paid or unpaid, and
you always can bank on him for one
of two thingS-a boy or a girl.