Making due allowances for discrepancies, which might have been expected, and for developments, which could not have been readily foreseen, it may be truthfully said that this document indicated quite clearly and more or less accurately the hospital needs for the care of sick and disabled ex-service men and women, if these patients were to receive the character of medical service which, in the judgment of the best medical minds, was necessary for their restoration to health and which could not be satisfactorily given in other than suitably constructed institutions.
Leaving aside these considerations, it was apparent that, when the Public Health Service was charged with responsibility, it was immediately necessary to meet the urgent demands suddenly created by the termination of the war.
The Public Health Service, in the manner indicated above, attempted, therefore, to formulate and put into execution a temporary program for the purpose of meeting immediate needs, leaving a permanent program to be developed in accordance with the appropriations and legislation.
Without going into any more detail, it will suffice to state in very general terms the work which the Public Health Service has done in this connection and which it is still doing.
Since the inception of the work, it has created a hospital system of considerable magnitude, and is now operating some 68 hospitals, with a total bed capacity of over 21,000, and expects, within the more or less near future, to open additional hospitals and increase present facilities by something less than 5,000 additional beds.
This Service now has under its care about 13,500 veterans of the World War in its hospitals. In addition to this, it is also caring for 3,000 to 4,000 Federal beneficiaries, with whose care and treatment it has long been charged, making a total of nearly 17,000 hospital patients under its care at the present time.
In the development of this hospital system, the Public Health Service has divided its hospitals into three large groups, namely; hospitals for general medical and surgical cases, for cases of tuberculosis, and for cases of neuropsychiatry. It has been unable to develop this system of hospitals with the uniformity desirable under the circumstances, and has, therefore, found difficulty in meeting the needs of those suffering from neuropsychiatric and tuberculous disorders. This demand, however, has of late been far more adequately met, especially with regard to tuberculosis.
In addition to the development of its hospital system, the Public Health Service, soon after assuming its responsibilities in this work, created what was designated as the District Supervisors’ organization. The United States was divided into fourteen districts and, in some large center of population in each of these districts, there was established a district headquarters, with a sub-district organization reaching out even to the individual counties.
This organisation constituted a decentralizing agency, and, as such, served a most useful and important function, not only in the work of the Public Health Service, but also in the work of the War Risk Insurance Bureau. This entire organization, which had grown enormously, was transferred to the Bureau of War Risk Insurance in April, 1921, with its complete personnel. It is now operated by the U. S. Veterans’ Bureau as its decentralizing agency and is still performing a necessary and important function in the work of that Bureau.
It was also necessary to create a greatly extended purveying service for supplying the necessary equipment, etc., to the hospital system which had been inaugurated. The Purveying Service has grown enormously and, at the present time, is not only purveying to the hospitals of this Service, but is also rendering assistance to the U. S. Veterans’ Bureau in purveying for its offices and its medical facilities.