Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-04-06
81 Additional Employees
At GoI|inger Recommended
Expansion Of Contract Medical
Charities Also in Budget

Gently some accidents had occurred
and real dangers were presented by
the necessity of keeping large num-
Der Of insane persons at Gallinger,
many of them under restraint.
The subcommittee also recorded a
demand for immediate demolition Of
the ancient wooden buildings on the
Galhnger reservation upon compile
ton of the two new ward buildings
now being erected under P. w. A.
funds. It declared when this con-
struction is completed IAN adequate
number of beds will be provided and
that there can be no excuse for
continuing use of the wooden build
ings after that time for the housing
and care of patients" The old struc-
lures have been used repeatedly as
focal points in arguments for new
buildings at the hospital.
Chairman Collins, it was disclosed
in publication of the record of the
hearings. compiled testimony to
show that with construction of new
tuberculosis wards at Gallinger and
at Freedmen's Hospital the District
would have some LOO beds for
tuberculosis patients, or at least
equal to the standard of twice the
number of beds for patients as
there are deaths annually from the
disease.
Collins Questions Urgent Need.
Health Officer Rutland agreed he
could get along with the number of
beds to be provided under the con-
struction program "at least for the
present time" but when he sug-
gested it might be we'll, in the flu
ture, to provide convalescent home,
Chairman Collins retorted:
Doctor, we all want to provide
all of the money that we need, but
there is not any use, because it is
public health, in squandering public
funds, and in that connection I
have been told that when these new
hospitals are built, the Navy Hos
pital, the annex at Gallinger and
the new Medical Hospital on street
and other hospital construction is
finished, We will have more than
Two times as many hospital beds
in the District as the Amer
lean Medical Association and the
American Hospital Association say
is necessary per 1000 of population
throughout the United States.
THAT means, in the District, that
patients are going to 60 to newly
constructed institutions, and it also
means that these older hospitals are
just going to be places where the
bats and owls can roost, and no
body will go to them"
Chairman Collins also questioned
health officials as to whether they
had issued instructions that patients
be sent to Gallinger instead of to
other services, ostensibly as means
of showing a greater patient load
at Gallinger.
DR.. Rutland explained that some
of the contract hospitals were run
ming over budgetary allowances in
recent months and that some OF the
treatment could be done more cheap
ly at Gallinger. He insisted his in
structions referred to ambulatory
patients and not bed patients. but
Mr.. Collins inserted in the record
a letter written by Dr. Rutland stat
ing:
Il have, under the circumstances,
Instructed DR.. Richard F. Tobin, di-
rector of our Hospital Permit Bu-
reau, to refer cases, wherever pos
sible, to the medical and surgical
wards of Gallinger Hospital, and
also to refer patients needing re-
dressings, x-rays and prescriptions,
at least temporarily, to Gallinger'