The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-01-05
THE HOSPITAL OR CLINIC
 OBSESSION

otof0S1ON
 Last March an editor told us here just how much it had cost her to have her third baby. Her old family doctor charged $35 for his services--including all prenatal care, attendance in confinement and after-care. Then she had q nurse for two weeks at $35 a week "a graduate nurse and a grand gal, though not registered. The nurse had the 0. k. or the doctor, how ever. The things the doctor advis- ed the editor to have ready cost $2.84 at the local drugstore-the editor, having brains, lives in a suburban village and commutes to her work Her friends donated clothes, all in a jolly friendly way some new articles, some cast offs outgrown by their own chil- dren-but the editor had to part with 75 cents for two shirts for the layette. She says all three of her babies have been purchased on this same easy payment plan and she intends to stick to the system for the next three.
 Gosh. I like to listen to that ed- itor's talk. It acts like antitoxin. A doctor in practice can manage somehow to keep in mind the fact that the world Is not so sordid or so ugly as 1t may appear to his professional eye. But l am con- ducting a health column and 1t sickcns me to find that the most frequent questions asked by those contemplating marriage or recent ly married is about birth control.
 The editors report of her sue cessful system brought in many letters about the hardships of pay ing for a 1893 model baby.
 I gather that people take 1t as hardship mainly because nobody who can get out of 1t is doing It.; whereas paying for the family everybody's doing 1t.
 One prospective mother who had borne two children without difficulty, had "Been Told" it would go hard with her this time because she is now nearly forty. That's just one of those old tra- ditions. So this time she decided to go to a hospital, a so-called free hospital. She says she was kept waiting 3 1-2 hours. and then. ahving passed through six officials, she was curtly informed that she must pay $G5 in installments, ten dollars cash down, and the doctor the baby if finances were uncer- tam
 Well, why did the lady flock to the hospital or clinic along with the rest of the sheep? If she has been in America long enough to speak and write, the language she ought to know that fl doctor who Is really good practices under his own name, not under tho name of d hospital. clinic, association. cor poration or institute. She ought to know, too, that these free" or cutrnto "clInIcs" and the like are rack ets--schemes whereby n group of doctors who can't make a go of 1t in private practice and under m athOds of fair competition, go dntO q huddle, take q name that irnpreases tho peasants. and attract fl certain amount of business on the wholesale basis, Finally she ought tO know that students. in. terms, tyr0 doctors, have Co get thnIr experience serving as nhhIst' ants or members Of the Stnf ID such institutions These appren- tleea usually assume moro or lehh of the responsibilities Of physi. clans and surgeons. but arc paid parhapH t2b fl month by the In' slltutl0D. Likewise the prObntI0neF or pupIl nurses, ia it hny. wonder such an institution enn deliveF baby, after a fashion, at such T | harnnlu DftaAY