Evening star., 1942-06-09
Advocates Rule Of Reason
In Hospitals in Time Of War.

TO the Editor Of The Star:
Almost year ago this Nations Capital
received its first grim warning Of an In
evitable shortage in hospital beds A
vigilant press publicized the indisputable
facts and demanded remedial action to
no practicable avail. Now we authorita-
lively are informed that this tragic sit
uation will be further aggravated by
rapidly growing shortage OF trained
nurses. This time, the municipal OK
is gored and huge disqualification in
vestments are faced with certain bank
ruptcy. so some formal and organized
effort is made to provide remedy. such
as the ur-point program recently spon-
sored by our lawyer Commissioner, Guy
Mason.
The present writer, while substan-
TALLY agreeing in principle with three
OF Mr.. Mason's proposals, nevertheless
raises the question of their sufhciency
to do more than safeguard the public
against a similar shortage of trained
hui oCo All VIC 4utulSs ObFioboAtB tiiCSS
proposals fail to take into consideration
that the hospital bed shortage and the
trained nurse shortage, so far as COM
munity welfare is concerned are one and
the same problem and to propose to solve
the one without solving the other stimuli
taneously is not common sense. Whereas
delay and calculated procrastination may
save a lawyers client. the contrary is
true of the clients of the healing arts.
Upon analyzing these proposals 1t
would appear to be far more sensible to
wipe out the protested and troublesome
wage differentials now existing between
equally qualified trained nurses doing
comparable professional duty in mill
tary and civilian capacities, by an equal
izing Federal wage-hour decision, rather
than to depend upon an ephemeral Fed
eral subsidy as an economic corrective.
With the present inordinate and increas-
ing levies upon the taxpayer. a Federal
subsidy should be the last resort. Per-
haps a subsidy in some form eventually
may be needed, but it would appear to
be far wiser to work out formula Of
solvency equitably to be applied to the
total deficiency resulting from the opera
ton and maintenance of a satisfactory
community disqualification service rather
than to confuse the issue by applying
an expedient to an isolated phase of the
problem.
Fortunately, an administrative tech
nique already has been devised and is in
actual operation. which with some modi-
fication equitably could be applied to our
combined hospital bed and nurse Short
age. This writer naturally refers to
the realistic administrative mechanism,
known as the Committee of Procurement
and Assignment, which under joint Fed
eral and civilian control and co-opera-
ton, have catalogued and classified the
total available supply of the Nations
qualified physicians and is intended to
use the rule Of reason in rationing them
according to existing military and civilian
need. This, you will see, is the purpose
full application of the same common
sense, realistic procedure. which costly
trial and error has compelled us to adopt
In respect to conserving and rationing
other vital materials and services. indis-
pensable to an all-out war effort but of
which there is q tragically limited sup
ply.
Applying this realistic principle and
o6UmlDka$tvo toahaid,ao b eeH danger.