Page images
PDF
EPUB

WORLD WAR VETERANS' LEGISLATION

NEW YORK

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1931

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON
WORLD WAR VETERANS' LEGISLATION,
Washington, D. C.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Reed will speak on his bill, H. R. 10045, which is as follows:

[H. R. 10045, Seventy-first Congress, second session]

A BILL To authorize the erection of a Veterans' Bureau hospital in the western part of the State of New York, and to authorize the appropriation therefor

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in order that the United States may in part fulfill its sacred obligations to its World War veterans, the Director of the United States Veterans' Bureau, subject to the approval of the President, is authorized and directed to contract for the erection in the western part of the State of New York of a modern, sanitary, fireproof three hundred bed patient capacity hospital plant for the diagnosis, care, and treatment of general, medical, and surgical disabilities, and to provide Government care for the increasing load of mentally afflicted veterans, regardless of whether said disability developed prior to January 1, 1925, at a cost not to exceed $1,400,000; such construction to provide additional hospital and out-patient dispensary facilities for persons entitled to hospitalization under the World War veterans' act, 1924, as amended. Such hospital and out-patient dispensary facilities shall include the necessary buildings and auxiliary constructions, mechanical equipment, approach work, roads, and trackage facilities leading thereto; vehicles, livestock, furniture, equipment, and accessories; and shall also provide accommodation for officers, nurses, and attending personnel; and shall also provide proper and suitable recreational centers; and the Director of the United States Veterans' Bureau is authorized to accept gifts or donations for any of the purposes herein named.

SEC. 2. The construction shall be done in such manner as the President may determine; and he is authorized to require the architectural, engineering, constructing, or other forces of any of the departments of the Government to aid or assist in such work, and to employ individuals and agencies not now connected with the Government, if in his opinion desirable, at such compensation as he may consider reasonable.

SEC. 3. For carrying into effect the foregoing provisions relating to additional hospital and out-patient dispensary facilities there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $1,400,000, to be immediately available and to remain available until expended; and not to exceed 3 per centum of this sum shall be available for the employment, in the District of Columbia and in the field, of necessary technical and clerical assistants at the customary rates of compensation, exclusively to aid in the preparation of the plans and specifications for the projects authorized herein and for the supervision of the execution thereof, and for traveling expenses, field equipment, and supplies in connection therewith.

STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL A. REED, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. REED. It is always a great pleasure to come before you to discuss these matters. You recall that about a year ago I was before this committee on H. R. 10045, which provides for a hospital in western New York.

Mrs. ROGERS. Your bill is included in this omnibus bill now under consideration and recommended by the American Legion convention at Boston, which I introduced in December.

Mr. REED. Yes. I covered the ground quite thoroughly when I was here before, and will not go into those details again. The necessity exists. I am satisfied with my case at that time, but there are certain matters that I wish to bring up, so that you will not go astray with reference to some other proposals to take care of the soldiers in western New York. In Buffalo there is a marine hospital. I would like to go into the details of that marine hospital, if I may. Originally the marine hospital was intended to serve the sailors of the Great Lakes, and they contributed funds to that end. Somehow they have been crowded out, and to-day no sailors who has not sailed within 60 days, no matter how needy, even though for years sailors have contributed to that hospital, can go into that institution, because it is crowded with veterans of the World War, and properly so, because they have no other place to go. It is an old hospital, and ought not to be enlarged, and it would be a gross injustice to the veterans of the World War if that was to be expended and soldiers put into that old, dilapidated, run-down institution.

Mrs. ROGERS. Where is that?

Mr. REED. In Buffalo, the marine hospital. I do not want that mistake made. Let the Public Health expand, if it will. There is another institution that was talked of when the hospital was located in Canandaigua, the Bath Soldiers' Home, inaccessible to facilities. such as you will have in western New York and at Buffalo.

Mrs. ROGERS. This committee has nothing to do with that. Mr. REED. I understand that perfectly. I relieve you of all responsibility for that mistake. I will say another thing in regard to that Bath home. That is an old set of buildings, antiquated, fire liable to break out and sweep the whole city. They have no adequate fire protection in Bath compared to what they need. We want something modern and want it in western New York. We are putting veterans anywhere we can, and many of them can not get anywhere in western New York, and it is a crime for this rich Nation to do that sort of thing. I had occasion to go to the Veterans' Bureau and make an intensive study personally of the hospital situation of this country, and while you are more familiar than I am I will say to you that one of the darkest spots as far as failure to give hospitalization to the veterans is in western New York. I will say that in passing. I thank you for this opportunity.

Mrs. ROGERS. We realize your need for hospitalization.

STATEMENT OF JAMES P. COTTER, CHAIRMAN HOSPITAL COMMITTEE, DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK, AMERICAN LEGION

Mr. COTTER. Last spring we had the pleasure of appearing before your committee with a large delegation and presented an elaborate brief in three volumes, which I believe you still have in your records, asking for not only a general hospital but an N. P. hospital. This time we appear entirely on the general hospital of 300 beds, as recommended at the Louisville and Boston conventions of the American Legion.

Mrs. ROGERS. Is the condition the same as last winter?

Mr. COTTER. A whole lot the same as last time. We have here the report as made by the Veterans' Bureau office in Buffalo a few days ago, showing the veterans in Government hospitals allotted to the Buffalo regional office. I have a copy here for each of you and one for the record (Exhibit A). It is misleading, because it is not a complete report of all cases in hospitals but covers only Government hospitals. Even from this report, however, we note there are 181 general medical cases which are now cared for in Government hospitals of some kind. In addition, you will note there are two contract G. M. cases, and on the waiting list 25 cases for the hospital at Bath, making a total of 208, according to Veterans' Bureau records. Our position is that although the report shows that the men are now in Government hospitals, they are entitled to care in a modern United States Veterans' Bureau hospital instead of the facilities now used.

You will also note on the report 32 T. B. cases on the waiting list. This report only shows the cases of the Buffalo regional office, separate and distinct from the waiting list at the New York City office in our State, where, I am informed, there are 99 T. B. cases on the waiting list. In addition to that, we have actually hospitalized outside of the State a very large number of veterans from one part of the country to another.

Mrs. ROGERS. What is your greatest load outside?

Mr. COTTER. We showed the total in our brief last spring, and it is in our State report of our hospital committee last year, a copy of which I will leave with you. The figures for the State as a whole show over 350 cases of all kinds scattered throughout the country and over 450 in State or civil hospitals not recognized by the Veterans' Bureau. We have the distribution of our cases throughout the State in the summer of last year-that is, July, 1930—and I am sorry I could not get the figures for the present time. I give you the figures as of last July, quoting from pages 5, 6, and 7 of the report of Judge Wingate, chairman of our hospital committee last year. In Massachusetts we had 63 cases; in Maine, 2; in New Jersey, 1; in Pennsylvania, 21; in Washington, D. C., 80; in Maryland, 25; in Virginia, 1; in Georgia, 3; in Florida, 4; in North Carolina, 35; im Alabama, 1; in Mississippi, 1; in Arkansas, 3; in Texas, 4; in Ohio, 5; in Indiana, 5; in Illinois, 4; in Michigan, 6; in Wisconsin, 4; in Iowa. 4; in Minnesota, 1; in South Dakota, 1; in Colorado, 15; in New Mexico, 10; in Wyoming, 4; in California, 25; and in Arizona, 29. In Buffalo alone we are spending this time for the year 1930-31,

the fiscal year beginning July 1, over $400,000 for indigent veterans, and at the present time we have 85 veterans in the hospital cared for by the city of Buffalo, and a running estimate from the man in charge is that 25 per cent are service connected. They stay there rather than go to Bath or Brooklyn, because they are close to their families and they are cared for better than they would be cared for at Bath. Mr. Williams will go into the Bath situation, as Congressman Reed already has. The city of Buffalo is under no obligation to care for them. I doubt if we can continue to get that much money from the city of Buffalo, as the taxes are raising and people are kicking about the veterans getting that much money each year. Last year the number ran from 30 to 40, and now we are hospitalizing 85 on an average each day for Buffalo alone, and, as stated before, inspection will show that 25 per cent of those Buffalo cases are service connected.

We have a large veteran population in our western New York area, 180,000 more than any of the States except Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts, and possibly Michigan, California, and Missouri. To give general medical and surgical treatment to the 180,000 we have only the facilities of the marine hospital at Buffalo, which cares for 25 to 35 cases, as will be explained by Mr. Williams, and this so-called hospital at Bath, which is an antique building, and there is a waiting list even for that.

Mr. FENN. That is an adjunct to the soldiers' home?

Mr. COTTER. Yes; and in a building 50 years of age, dilapidated, not fireproof, dingy walls, oily floors, and nothing modern about it. It is the principal institution we have to care for the veterans. For that hospital there is a waiting list of 20 at the present time, and remember we are still taking care of 85 in Buffalo. As I said, there are 180,000 veterans in that area, and we have at the present time 22,000 claims in our Veterans' Bureau. Last year, according to the figures we submitted at that time, there were 17,430 claims on file. Instead of 17,430 cases in the past year, as of January 10, 1930, the figures we received day before yesterday at Buffalo veterans' office show 22,000, an increase of 5,000 cases approximately in a year. Last year, when we offered the figures being as of January 10, 9,000 of those cases were nonservice connected and 6,000 service connected, approximately, and I maintain the same ratio applies to the increase. We have no hospital for general medical cases in that whole area, with the sole exception of the allotment of a few beds at the marine hospital and the inadequate facilities, temporary as they are, at Bath, which has been leased to the Federal Government for a period of 10 years.

We have a letter here from General Hines, with whom we took up the matter of this marine hospital at Buffalo. In October, according to a press dispatch, the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, stated that it was necessary to enlarge the Buffalo marine hospital because of the 85 beds there; 50 were occupied by United States Veterans' Bureau patients. I wrote General Hines with reference to the question as to whether or not he thought it advisable for the Veterans' Bureau to continue to have cases cared for at the marine hospital of the United States Public Health Service, a hospital not controlled by Veterans' Bureau doctors or staff, and with whom we have had considerable trouble in the past at Buffalo, or at a Veterans' Bureau hospital. The United

States Public Health Service do not understand the Veterans' Bureau regulations. They get men up there that are not service connected and take out their teeth without authority from the Veterans' Bureau and without authority to put false ones back in. There are many similar cases showing continual friction with the Public Health Service. They have a good many rules and regulations of their own, and I do not understand them myself. Instead of enlarging their hospital to care for Veterans' Bureau patients give the veterans a new hospital and the marine hospital will be adequate to care for its

own cases.

We feel that this new hospital we are asking for, while it is termed a "general hospital," should have facilities in addition for the small amount of T. B. and for some N. P. cases. At the present time, according to the statement handed you, there are on the Buffalo office waiting list for our two T. B. hospitals in the State 14 for Sunmount hospital and 12 for Castle Point, and a waiting list for the Aspenwall T. B. hospital in Pennsylvania of 6.

Mrs. ROGERS. What are you doing for women veterans at Castle Point? I mean what do you believe the Veterans' Bureau is doing for them?

Mr. COTTER. The State hospital committee last winter recommended the construction of a separate cottage large enough to accommodate 15 patients, and we still request it.

Mrs. ROGERS. I understand there are some female patients there. Mr. MILLER. There were about 17.

Mrs. ROGERS. There were quite a number, and some have been taken out.

Mr. MILLER. There were a few women veterans, 11 or 17 in a 36-bed ward, and the Veterans' Bureau felt under the law which you sponsored that directed their care in contract institutions that they should be so cared for, and I think they have all been moved out, probably to a female T. B. sanitarium up there.

Mrs. ROGERS. Are they satisfied?

Mr. MILLER. I have not heard any kick. There was so much pressure for those beds in this 36-bed ward for the normal run of men veterans that they attempted to take them all out, and I think they have. There were six women veterans in Castle Point on November 30.

Mr. COTTER. That hospital is not in the Buffalo area. It is in the New York City area. We have two Veterans' Bureau areas in New York State, one for the metropolitan area, New York City and the Hudson, and one for western New York, which includes everything west of Albany. Whether they go to Castle Point, Aspinwall, or Sunmount, there are not enough beds for our T. B. cases, as is shown by this waiting list of 32, namely, 14 at Sunmount, 12 at Castle Point, and 6 at Aspinwall, and we feel in this new general hospital there should be some facilities for taking care of approximately 30 beds for the T. B. waiting list, feeding those in the T. B. hospitals as beds become available.

In addition, there should be a small ward set aside for about the same number of N. P. cases. We have a 400-bed N. P. hospital about to be built at Canandaigua, but according to our figures that is overcrowded now. At the present time, according to the figures on the report I gave you when I opened my statement, there are 27 service

« PreviousContinue »