The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1947-01-10
Montana Woefully-

Continued from Page One)


thousand of As normal beds.
Mo Hospitals
The two principle counties without
any hospital facilities are Madison
1924 pop, 194O) and Beaverhead
(6,943 pop, 194O). Citizens in these
two counties to avail themselves of
hospital services must travel either
to Butte, Whitehall or Bozeman. The
other nine counties are: Granite,
Meagher, Judith Basin, Petroleum,
Wibaux, Wheatland, Golden Valley
Sweet Grass and Carter.
Use-of Montana hospitals is shown
in that from July, 1914, through June,
1915, 1922 people were admitted to
the IS general hospitals and 1924 into
the special hospitals-Fort Harrison,
Shodair Crippled Children Hospital,
both at Helena; State Mental Hospital
at Warm Springs, and State TB SAM
tarium at Galen.
One area had admissions equal to
less than per cent of it's population,
while another ran as high as % per
cent
The IS general hospitals furnished
a total of 761,53 patient days Of serv-
ice in one year-an average of 81
days per patient. For all hospitals
including the specials, a total of L.
259,025 patient days of service was
rendered-averaging 154 days per pa
tient.
Proposed Future Plans
Proposed hospital construction in
an area can be of three types. There
may be complete replacement in the
sense of abandoning an existing be-
low-standard construction hospital and
replacing it with a modern building.
Secondly, there may be major addi-
lions to an already established hospi-
tai Thirdly, there may be construc-
ton of totally new facilities in a COM
munity previously without hospital,
or an additional hospital in COM
munity already having some hospital
facilities.
"There is evidence that Montana's
present hospital construction problem
is not alone one of acquiring addition
al bed space, especially in areas with
out hospitals, but is also one of COM
pletely replacing existing buildings, in
with fire resistance stand
ards, and of providing structures to
replace bed for bed. In fourteen in
stances plans call for additional beds
to be added to existing general hos
pital facilities. In eight instances
there are plans for new hospital loca-
tons of the general hospital type max
ing a total of twenty-five new general |
hospitals in Montana"
Propose so Per Cent Increase
Under the committees proposals the
normal bed capacity would be in
creased from 1859 to 4,337-a popu-
alton ratio increase from So to rs.
Specials would have bed capacities in
creased from CTS to 1898 or an in
crease from Is to 25 per thousand
Four proposals as a guide to financ-
ng and statewide planning have been
made by the committee.
l. Federal financial assistance I'M
Ter terms of the Hill-Burton act (S.B.
SD passed by the congress in August
# 1916, for hospital construction to a
tate is likely to be in the nature of
total grant, the amount varying in
accordance with long time average
Der capita income for the population
# the state concerned and in accord
nee with other measures of need.
there must be non-federal money to
match the grant.
2. The amount Of federal money
made available as a grant to the vari-
us states, no matter how liberal, will
ot be sufficient to cover much of the {
eed, especially in Montana, nor will /
. be available at one time, but will i
e extended over a number of years.
g. 1t will therefore be necessary to
ave state agency to accept the fed H
raj grant and distribute the funds
-ithin the state in accordance with
ertain established rules and require
rents. ii
4. To do this, it will be necessary II
study the existing hospital facilities
the state and to develop some basic
Ian for co-ordinated hospital services
- Il,