(a) Helping to connect men approved for vocational training to get in contact with the proper government officials later. With a Veteran Bureau’s representative in the hospital, this should be much simplified. (b) Following up patients who leave the hospital A.W.O.L. or against advice, to see if they return or if leaving against advice that they are placed under proper supervision in the home community.
Lastly there is the Information service which this Department may provide:
(a) Communicating with family doctors and others to assist in securing affidavits necessary to substantiate government claims. (b) Information to families regarding patients’ personal and family affairs when advised to do so by the Commanding Officer. (c) Furnishing information to patients regarding government legislation. (d) Furnishing information regarding government insurance.
The Social Service Department of the hospital irrespective of the source of supply of the personnel must be considered as an integral part of the hospital, subject to the inspections, rules and regulations of the hospital.
The Red Cross at present provides the personnel for social service endeavors and I cannot conceive how any other agency could undertake to provide this service without providing the cobweb like organization spread out over the United States with thousands of Home Service sections as the Red Cross maintains, prepared to furnish information to the government officials. Until the government can provide a similar, and an adequate service, I know of no other civilian organization which enjoys the semi-official recognition imposed by the Congress and to which we in the government can turn for assistance, than the American Red Cross.
The social service problem is one of helping the doctor, the man, the family, and to represent the community.
We as medical men must remember that treatment, if successfully instituted, must embrace rehabilitation of the mind to a like degree that it does the body. A cure cannot be affected by the simple administration of drugs or a stroke of the scalpel. Something just as important, and in many instances more so, is the attention to the mental state of the patient. All the medicine, all the most skilled surgery will not cure unless careful attention is paid to the mental frame of mind of the patient. The whole social service effort is one to help bring back the patient to the world of reality and to maintain morale at a high level.
We must always be conscious that in caring for patients there is a basic distinction due to the mental depressions resultant from illness, helplessness and dependency, and protracted convalescence. Sick men have distorted judgment, reason illogically, magnify trifles, and acquire a certain degree of negativeness. Their spirit of discipline is stunted. They resent correction and restriction. They must be retrained to think logically and coherently. Each patient must be treated separately, prescribing for his individualism when he is abed and while still unable to attempt a return to group action. The morale of the patient is just as important as the administration of drugs or surgical relief. In fact, I do not believe it too broad a statement to say more so, for every patient must be treated from a morale standpoint. While some patients need medical, others surgical treatment, a great many need neither medical nor surgical attention, but only mental rehabilitation. The last class are not necessarily pathological cases nor psychiatric cases, but a peculiar class demanding careful study and definite prescription usually of a recreational form.
We must not overdo the social service for the good of the man himself, his family and his community. The greatest service we can render the disabled ex-service man is to reinstall in him self-reliance. We must keep his morale high, for morale is the perpetual ability to come back.”
COL. EDWIN P. WOLFE gave the following discussion on “Hospital Supplies”.