Evening star., 1941-08-14
Most Hospitals
Here FaceAcute
Staff Shortages
Better Defense Jobs
Or Army Taking
Doctors and Nurses

Most Washington hospitals are
facing an increasingly acute short
age of resident doctors, nurses and
other employees due to calls to active
military duty and to more lucrative
jobs in defense agencies, survey
Of hospital facilities disclosed today.
Several hospitals reported they
had been unable to fill their quotas
of internes and one hospital re-
vealed it had lost 100 nurses.
Although every effort is being
made to uphold nursing standards,
ward aides are performing some
housekeeping duties previously done
by the nurses and several hospitals
admitted they would be forced to
train subsidiary nurses If the short
age continued. Nursing organiza-
tions. meanwhile, are studying
means of meeting hospital demands
for nursing service.
Frills' Missing Now.
At Doctors Hospital, Director o.
X. Pike commented that sick people
in Washington are still getting ade-
quate hospital care but without the
"frills" they have come to ex-
pect.
ANY hospital with full graduate
staff" he said, lis experiencing dlf-
ficulty in keeping up permanent
running organization. None of them
can give the service they did year
ago. But the public doesn't seem
to understand that we are actually
in state of emergency
A shortage in the lower pay
brackets, such as orderlies. helpers
and elevator operators was re-
ported by DR.. F. J. Eisenman at
Garfield Hospital. AS at several
other hospitals, he commented that
men who would have been willing to
accept hospital pay year ago now
were taking more profitable jobs on
defense projects. Others have been
drafted.
Four Women Internes Hired.
To fill gaps among the interneS,
the hospital, he said, has taken on
four women internes, instead of
maintaining its practice of taking
one woman inferno each year. Men
over IS, married men and those
without connections in military re-
serve organizations are also being
taken on the house staff, from
which four men have already gone
into service.
Asked how Garfield planned to
staff the s4,000,000 new building for
which it has asked funds from the
Federal Works Agency, Or. Efser-1
man said new units would he. Stated
gradually and added that the situa-.
ton might be less acute before the
expansion program is completed.
sibley Hospital, with its own
nursing school, expects its gradual
ing class to help fill the ranks but
DR.. John Orem, superintendent. re-
pHted that it was becoming in
creasingly difficult to get all types
OF help.
This year, he said, Sibley has had
10 get along without any second
year internes. The second year men
have gone into the Army.
Emergency Feels Shortage.
The nursing department was
affected first at Emergency Hospital.
Supt. B. B. Sandidge said, but all
other departments are now feeling
the shortage.
The hospital, he said, was run
ming on limited house staff.
Walters, orderlies, clerks, engineers,
firemen and Office personnel are
among those who have gone to bet
ter jobs or into the armed forces.
Mr.. Sandidge said there was no
question that something would
have to be done to use subsidiary
nursing help trained to do some
duties previously performed by
graduate nurses.
A shortage among internes was
noted by Miss Elizabeth NJ Rogers
at Casualty Hospital although she
said the hospital had Jared better
than most. The staff of internes