Evening star., 1945-01-19
Draft Of Nurses
Vital, Gen. Kirk
Tells Hearing
10000 Wounded Are
Brought Home Every
Month, He Says
BY ]. A. O'LEARY.

Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk,
surgeon general of the Army, de-
clared today that inadequate
nursing care in the face of a 27O
per cent increase in battle cas-
ualty patients makes it impera-
tive that nurses be drafted.
He told the House Military Af-
fairs Committee that between 10000
and $4,000 battle casualty patients
are being brought home monthly
now, as compared with $500 a
month during the first half of 1914,
when the nurse recruiting drive
started. This is rise of 27O per
cent.
Gen. Kirk testified that the num-
Der of Army hospital patients
jumped from 100000 to 100000 be-
tween April and December last year,
while the nursing corps to care for
them was increased by only 1000.
$4,000 More Needed.
On the basis of this experience,
Gen, Kirk said he did not believe it
would be possible to obtain the
$1,000 additional nurses the Army
needs without a draft. He said the
Army Nursing Corps must be in
creased from $4,000 to $4,000. This
does not include the needs of the
Navy, whose officials have not yet
testified.
Although 27,000 new nurses gradu-
ated from nursing schools between
April and December, the Army OBJ
tanned net increase in its corps of
only 1000.
Patients are leaving the hospitals
at the rate of $4,000 a month to
return to duty or be discharged, SO
that the patient load is increasing
at double the discharge rate. The
estimate of 10000 nurses needed is
figured to provide one nurse to Il
beds overseas and one to Is ''in the
zone OF the interior" Actually there
is now only one nurse to 25 beds in
the zone of interior.
60 Per Cent Assigned Abroad.
Selective service would euualiZe
throughout the country the drain
on the home front nursing supply,
the general pointed out. Draftees
would be offered commissions as
second lieutenants.
Gen. Kirk told the committee that
Army hospitals in the United States
are understaffed because of the
large number of nurses required
overseas. He said more than so
per cent of all Army nurses now are
assigned abroad.
This country has an obligation
to care for its wounded men" he
concluded. There is hardly an
American family that does not have
son or an immediate relative in
the armed forces who may some day
require medical and nursing care
Gen. Kinks testimony interrupted
committee work on the May work
or-be- drafted legislation for men
between 18 and As. An anticlosed
shop amendmenet to that measure
is to be taken up by the committee
at an executive session later today.
This is one of a variety of
changes likely to be proposed at the
executive session
In its first important decision
late yesterday, the committee re-
Jected, IA to 6, a move by Rep
resentative Andrews, Republican, of
New York to substitute a modified
form of national service for the
work or drafted bill. This vote
is not regarded as test of what
will happen to the May bill, even
though the Andrews proposal was
not much different from it in scope.
Framework of Old Bill.
Mr.. Andrews took the framework
of the old Austin Wadsworth bill,
which defined the obligation of
every man between 18 and 65, and
OF every woman between Is and so,
to serve where needed in the war
effort, but he eliminated all ref
erence to women, and cut the age
limit for men down to As.
The May bill would enable selec-
tive service to induct into Army
labor battalions, without veterans
benefits, any registrant Is to As who
leaves an essential job, or who dis
regards a request by his draft board
to transfer from nonessential work
to war job. There are strong in
dications the House group will
adopt fine or Imprisonment as
penalty in place of Army induction
into labor battalions.
The amendment being prepared by
Mr.. Stewart is intended to give a
registrant the free choice to join or
stay out of a labor union if he
should be asked by his draft board
to go to a plant having a closed
shop contract 1t is expected, how
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