| 500 | beds for tuberculosis patients in the State of California; |
| 500 | beds for insane in California; |
| 200 | beds in Chicago to enable the Edward Hynes Jr. Hospital to be converted into a hospital for mental cases; |
| 150 | beds for general medical and surgical cases in the vicinity of Memphis; |
| 600 | beds for general medical and surgical cases in the metropolitan area of New York; |
| 250 | beds for general medical and surgical cases at the Walter Reed Hospital |
| _____ | |
| 2,200 |
It has recently become apparent that the neuro-psychiatric hospital at Marion, Indiana, operated by the National Home for Volunteer Disabled Soldiers, can only care for nervous and mild mental cases, and is not prepared to handle definitely insane. Development in the future may make it necessary, therefore, to ask for further provision for insane at that or some other point in the country east of the Mississippi River.
Estimating that we will have approximately 2,000 or 2,500 cases in contract institutions for many years, the Bureau is endeavoring to provide for a maximum load of about 32,000 cases, the peak probably being reached in 1922. It is estimated that the general medical and surgical cases will diminish rapidly, but that permanent beds for the treatment of approximately 13,000 tuberculosis, and 9,500 neuro-psychiatric cases must be available.
Gentlemen, I have attempted briefly to outline the growth and the magnitude of our hospitalization program, and have told you roughly what the expectation and needs of the United States Veterans’ Bureau in regard to hospitalization facilities are. It is all summed up in our earnest endeavor of the United States Government to provide every ex-soldier, sailor, marine or nurse who becomes a beneficiary is the United States Veterans’ Bureau with the best medical treatment available under the best conditions possible. But in spite of our needs for additional governmental hospital facilities, I want to assure you all that to my best knowledge there is not a single veteran of the World War, eligible for treatment and who has applied for hospital treatment, for whom hospital facilities have not been found or who has not been offered hospitalization.”
GENERAL SAWYER:
“Allow me to suggest just one thing. You will notice that on the program there is a time for general discussion of all these subjects, and I wish you would make pencil notes of the things that appeal to you as being of importance enough to be called up during the discussion. We are here really to get out of this all we can, and we want you to feel free to call for any further consideration of these subjects when we get to that hour of discussion.
I have pleasure in introducing Major Merritte W. Ireland, who will address you upon the subject of ‘The Army’s Relation to the hospitalization of the World War Veteran’.”
GENERAL IRELAND:
The treatment provided in our military hospitals for World War soldiers may be summarized in instructions approved by the Secretary of War, which were about as follows: That no member of the military service disabled in line of duty even though not expected to return to duty, would be discharged from the service until he had attained complete recovery or as complete recovery as could be expected he would attain when the nature of his disability was considered. It was laid down, further, that physical reconstruction consisted in the completest form of medical and surgical treatment carried to the point where maximum functional restoration, mental and physical, had been secured. To secure this result the use of work, mental and manual, was required during the convalescent period. This therapeutic measure, in addition to aiding greatly in shortening the convalescent period, retains or arouses mental activities, prevents the state of mind acquired by chronic hospital patients, and enables the patient to be returned to service or to civil life with the fullest realization that he can work in his handicapped state and with habits of industry much encouraged, if not newly formed. Early in 1918, the Secretary of War also authorized the Medical Department to proceed with the scheme for reconstruction of officers and enlisted men of the Army alone without consideration of the other bureaus of the government involved. This reconstruction it was clearly understood would end at the point where the medical reconstruction ceased and the future reconstruction of such cases was to be completed by other agencies of the Government after the individuals had been discharged from the Army.
Patients then were cared for in military hospitals up to the point of maximum functional restoration, both mental and physical. In the case of patients who were ultimately to be discharged from military service, arrangements were made whereby the Federal Board for Vocational Training might have access to these men as soon as it was known that they were to be discharged and the educational officers of the Medical Department were directed to cooperate with the representatives of the Federal Board to the fullest possible extent, in order that the patients concerned might have all the advantages assured them by the Federal Government.