Hospitals

There are twice as many hotels (about 13,000) in the U. S. as there are hospitals. But hospitals have just as many beds (1,000,000). Hotels take in $1,000,000,000 each year. For hospitals there are no comparable figures, because practically all are operated at a loss which neither their directors, trustees nor owners like to make public. On the other hand, they are frank in revealing their facilities for treating patients and teaching personnel. Statistics on those activities an American Medical Association committee headed by Stanford University's President Ray Lyman Wilbur fully reported in the A. M. A. Journal last week. Significant excerpts:

Sixteen people entered U. S. hospitals every minute last year. They represented one-fifteenth of the nation's population. Nine-tenths of the 8,646,885 entered general hospitals and stayed there an average of 13 days each. Of the children born in the U. S. last year, 38% were born in hospitals.

Some hospitals, notably State insane asylums, are overcrowded. Of 228 mental hospitals that replied to the committee's inquiry 135 reported excess of patients over normal capacity. In 74 the crowding was more than 15% beyond the rating. Four mental hospitals contained more than 50% excess patients. General hospitals complain of their empty beds, which last year totaled 35.7% of capacity. Some of these vacancies constitute a kind of insurance against over-crowding during epidemics, fires, flood, earthquakes. But many, argued one contributor to last week's A. M. A. Journal, are due to a zest to build, although every bed in a U. S. hospital represents a cost of from $5,000 to $7,500 in space and equipment. Currently about 600 new hospitals are being built or planned. Proposed expenditures: $100,000,000.

The A. M. A. last year refused to approve 581 hospitals. Reasons: alleged unethical practices, flagrant advertising, hiring of seriously unqualified personnel.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.