OCR Interpretation


The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, June 16, 1918, Section 5 Magazine Section, Image 56

Image and text provided by The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation

Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1918-06-16/ed-1/seq-56/

What is OCR?


Thumbnail for 16

THE SUNT. SUNDAY. JUNE 10, 1918.
City Combed to Provide War Hospitals
Stores, Schools, Estates and Homes Com
mandeered to Provide 50.000 Beds for
Troops at Home and From Abroad
mmEt:
16
-ImmmmEIHF B
LLLLLLYaf93mUmkv mH
mmmmmmK ' .mmmH
TJ Surgeon -general
GORGAS. U.S.A.
By JOHN WALKER HARRINGTON.
LEGIONS of the wounded from Over
There will soon be arriving At HI. 13
f port and therefore the War Department
is making sure that it will have enough
hospitals to accommodate them. Prepara
tions are under way to convert depart
ment stores, schools, college dormitories,
institutions and also private houses and
estates into hospicc3 for the wounded he
jroes. At least 50,000 beds will be re
J quired and the Federal authorities esti
mate that the quota may amount to twice
that number.
Col. J. M. Kennedy, the medical officer
in charge of the port of embarkation,
which includes the metropolis as well as
the Jersey shores of the harbor, has a
vast problem to meet. He must provide
hospital facilities within a few weeks for
the care of all invalided troops, whether
they have come from the East or from the
West. New York is the great entrepot of
the war. It is a point both of embarka
tion and debarkation for our soldiers.
To make this hospital system efficient
the War Department lias divided it into
the eastbound and the westbound divi
sions. Although, for military reasons, few
details are published, there is a constant
movement of troops from the cantonments
of the country to the Atlantic seaboard.
Maajr Become Disabled in Camp.
Although the surgeons at the various
camps have eliminated as far as possible
recruits who are physically unfit, many
soldiers are disqualified for service on the
eve of embarkation. They may have de
veloped constitutional maladies or been
attacked by malaria and other diseases,
the germs of which they have brought
with them. They become medical cases.
Also there are a few who are likely to be
injured in accidents on the way and re
quire surgical attention.
For the care of ill and injured men
eastbound the Government is accumulat
ing a reserve of 10,000 beds. There are
available at Camp Mcrritt 2,000 beds and.
accommodations for 800 patients are be
ing prepared at Schuetzen Park, Union
Hill, N. J., and 350 cots are in readiness
in a Government hospital at Secaucus,
X. J. There arc 500 patients now at the
Quarantine Hospital on Hoffman Island
and 050 beds will be available by the turn
ing over of St. Mary's Hospital, Ho
boken. The total number of bods in the public
and private hospitals of the city of New
York is twenty-seven thousand, of which,
if the civil population remains in reason
ably good health, from three to four thou
sand hods ran be placed at the disposition
of the army and navy. Negotiations are
in progress for transferring to the Gov
ernment the large municipal Sea View
Hospital for the treatment of tuberculo
sis. This is situated on Staten Inland.
It is also likely that the Parental Home
which the Board of Education established
at Flushing will be placed under the con
trol of the Surgeon-General of the army.
The regular hospital facilities of New
York have so little leeway that the Gov
ernment is not counting much upon thrm.
The conditions were discussed last week at
a conference called under the auspices of
the American Hospital Association at the
New York Academy of Medicine and over
which presided Dr. S. S. Gold water, super
intendent of Mount Sinai Hospital, and
one of the leading hospital experts of the
country. There were represented the
medical societies, the Red Cross, the vari
ous war services and nursing organi.-vi-tions
and the Government bureaus. The
hospitals of the city have about all they
can do to keep urMhe training of young
physicians and nurses. Any extensive
draft made upon them at this time, when
their staffs are already greatly depleted,
in the opinion of experts would result in
impairing efficiency at the front.
Col. Kennedy and his associates are,
therefore, founding an independent chain
of war hospitals. They already have ar
ranged for ten thousand beds in and about
the city of New York- for the westbound
or debarkation division. The main link
in this chain is the Government hospital
on Ellis Island, which has accommodations
for one thousand patients. It will serve
as the receiving station, and from it the
wounded will be distributed to the tem
porary hospitals. Next will come the
building at Sixth avenue and Eighteenth
and Nineteenth streets,, formerly occupied
by the Grecnhut store, which will be a
refuge for three thousand more blesses.
In the debarkation division is also in
cluded a new Government hospital at Fox
Hills, Staten Island, where seventeen hun
dred and fifty invalided soldiers may be
received.
Assigned to Treatment Hospital.
In those three-institutions the patients
will be carefully examined and studied
and assigned to treatment hospitals. In
this group are General Hospital No. 1,
aGun Hill road, The Bronx, which was
provided by Columbia University and is
capable of housing 1,000 patients; a hos
pital at Colonia, N. J., with a capacity
of 1,750 beds; the Saint Ann's Home, Jer
sey City, 250 beds, and the Lakcwood Hos
pital, where there is ample room for 1,000
more.
There are therefore provided in the
debarkation division approximately 4,000
beds for the reception of patients and
6,000 more for their special treatment.
So far this is only the nucleus of an or
ganization, and the Government, in order
to be on the safe side, must plan means
for the rehabilitation of many thousands
more, sufferers from shot and shell.
It is at this point that the Federal au
thorities invite the cooperation of the
citizens of New York. Although thev
can commandeer property of all kinds for
military purposes and for storehouses
there is no law which enables them to
take over structures for hospital use.
The real estate agents of the city have
divided it into zones and have volunteered
their services for finding suitable havens
for the wounded.
When "The Big Store" was opened
over twenty years ago no one ever
dreamed of its ever becoming a national
hospital, yet it is admirably adapted for
that mission. It has six floors above the
level of the street, all with an abundance
of light and air. There will be room for
3,000 cots without crowding, and the va
rious wards can be easily arranged.
Restaurant Now Comes Handy.
When the store was thronged with shop
pers in the old days, the proprietors main
tained a large public restaurant and a
smaller one for employees. The superin
tendent of the new Government hospital
there will use the .kitchens to prepare the
food of patients. The refrigerators, which
still remain, are large enough to store
nearly all the perishable food required.
In the basement arc extensive storage fa
cilities, while in the sub-basement the
heating and power plants arc intact. It
will not require much work to put them
again in commission.
The Government will set 400 or 500
men to work cleaning up the place. Par
titions and screens will ho installed, op
erating rooms will be tiled and equipped,
and lavatories will be renovated. Unfor
tunately those who are to visit this new
hospital will not le able to meet their sol
dier friends ''at the fountain.'' because
th,at colossal female figure which was so
lonff a landmark of the shopping district
has been removed. For the convales
cents there will be rest and recreation
rooms and likely a roof garden.
If the Government were selecting a
site for a hospital as large as this great
department store building it would have
preferred a location further removed
from the din of the city. Here, however,
is a fabric worth $3,500,000, which, at
cost comparatively low, can be placed in
first class condition. If such a building
were erected to order two years would
have to be spent in its contraction, and it
would cost the Government at least 50 per
cent, more on account of the present high
prices of building material and increased
wages of labor. Alwut the time the
building would bo completed it might he
time fb abandon it. The War Department
is allowing two months for converting the
"Big Store" into a working hospital.
To Be Transported bjr Boat.
Although this establishment is in a con
gested quarter of the city, the Federal
surgeons are planning a rapid system of
transportation for the patients. They are
arranging to have at' least three com
modious steamboats which will ply be
tween the base hospital at Ellis Island
and the piers of the Chelsea addition, near
West Twenty-third street in the Hudson
River. From the water front a string of
ambulances will convev the natients to th
Sixth avenue shelter.
With the transfer of what was once a
huge emporium to humanitarian uses the
activities of the medical department nre
only just begun. The officials are consid
ering the bringing of Blighty to Broad
way. There is a deal being negotiated for
the conversion of a large hotel on that
main artery which will accommodate at
least tliree thousand patients. Another
hotel, on the eastern side of the city, with
a capacity of fifteen hundred, is also on
the list. Several caravansaries at the sea
side resorts will soon be turned into treat
ment hospitals. The medical authorities
have received offers from patriotic citi
zens of houses and country places with
room varying from enough for two hun
dred to five hundred persons. They ex
pect to avail themselves of as many of
these generous offers as they can consist
ently with their scheme of organization.
The homes of prominent Americans in
the country about New York will prove
especially acceptable as retreats for the
convalescent or for patients who can be
readily moved. Clarence H. Maekay
through the Red Cross lias recently prof
fered to the nation his beautiful home,
Harbor Hill, at Roslyn", L. I., in the
spacious rooms and corridors of which
could be placed five hundred beds. W. K.
Vanderbilt, Sr., also has offered Idle Hour,
at Oakdale, L. I., another large estate.
Work for Every Citizen.
When the wounded come to New York
by the many thousands there will be work
for ever- citizen. The people will doubt
less follow the example of the English,
who have welcomed s many of the con
valescent soldiers to their homes as they
could. If it should happen that the war
hospitals on the other side of the Atlantic
are crowded soldiers of our allies may be
sent over here. In that case we should
be able to repay the kind hospitality
which so many "English families are show
ing to our boys who arc recovering from
their wounds Over There.
From the city of New York there will
extend the agencies for the care of those
returning injured and stricken from the
theatre of war. After all, extensive as
are the facilities provided in the metrop
olis, they will serve as a' series of clearing
houses. In order to prevent congestion
there must he a continuous distribution of
the wounded to various centres. Many
who may be able to return to the service
will be sent to reconstruction camps to be
made as good as new. There will be thou
sands of the victims of shell shock or of
paralysis who must be coaxed laboriously
to health. The burden of this care will
fall on the communities from which many
of the patients came.
The American Hospital Association at
the recent conference was so impressed
with the magnitude of this problem that
it advocated the appointment of a Fed
eral Health Administrator to bring about
a coordination of all these activities and
to insure adequate attention to the nec-ls
E31
DR. S.S. GOLD WATER
BTSTE
of the civilian population. Dr. Gold
water in his opening address spoke of
the tremendous drain upon the' hospitals
of the country and urged that a pro
gramme be devised which would meet it.
He suggested some of the tnsks which a
national Health Administrator could
undertake. Among these arc:
.The standardization of hospital
staffs in order that every hospital
might retain in its sen-ice the actual
numlcr of men required for the care
of its patients and no more.
The completion of the organization
of the Volunteer Medical Service
Corps, and the use of its members to
fill dangerous gaps in the serviee of
hospitals, dispensaries and civilian
communities.
The formulation of a plan for the
joint use of specialists by civil hos
pitals and by the military hospitals
which are being established to care
for returned soldiers.
The finding of means, both men
and money, by which dispensaries
can be kept going.
Arranging for the training of a
sufficient number of medical students
to keep up the supply of graduates
needed by the army and the civil
population. The schools are now
graduating about 3,000 men annu
ally, and it will take nearly 5,000
graduates a year to maintain the ex
isting ratio.
To provide internes for the hos
pitals which have none at present.
To invite the Medical Department
of the army to reconsider its assump
tion that a single year of clinical
training is ample.
To prevent the further breaking
up of the teaching stafTs of nursing
schools.
To take steps to create an adequate
supply of pupil nurses.
To promote a uniform system of
legislation for the training of bed
side attendants.
To arrange with the civil hospitals
for the training of a large reserve
supply of volunteer war nursing
aids.
To discover a means whereby hos
pitals can successfully compete in
the labor market against inflated war
industries.
To urge the Government in fram
ing war tax legislation, to stimulate
rather than to discourage donations
and bequests to hospitals.
To come to the relief of communi
ties which as a result of the war aro
left without adequate medical and
nursing sen-ice.
In the opinion of Dr. Goldwatcr it is
only by facing these problems now and
finding their speed v solution that
impairment of hospital efficiency can
avoided. I lie hospital must he kept ef
fective because the eflieienev of the med
ical and nursing professions is dependent
on it, and on these in turn depend to an
appreciable extent the vitalitv of
nation and its effectiveness in war.
the
e
the

xml | txt