The Finance Committee, acting early in May on the advice of Colonel Torney, established 26 free dispensaries which were supplied by the army with drugs and other medical supplies. It was careful not to compete with retail trade, so closed any dispensary near which a retail drug store was later opened. The Finance Committee also appointed early in May a committee on hospitals and authorized it to make payments to designated hospitals for the care of destitute patients. The hospitals which were to receive payments from the relief funds were at first named by the board of health, later by the Finance Committee itself, which made selection of six hospitals. An executive officer, a physician, was appointed to pass on the eligibility of the patients who applied for free care and to determine the time of discharge of each from the hospital.
In July this executive officer, whose title was that of supervisor of accredited hospitals, served under direction of the Executive Commission; but after August 1 he was subject to the Corporation, an arrangement which held until July 1, 1908, when the Bureau of Hospitals of the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation was closed. The Associated Charities was then given authority by the Corporation to send destitute patients directly to the hospitals. The Corporation reimbursed the hospitals for care given. The hospitals selected to receive patients whose care was paid for from the funds were changed from time to time.
The value of the compensation to hospitals was at first equivalent to $13 or $14 a week for each patient. On July 18 the Executive Commission had fixed the maximum rate of $2.00 per day without supplies. This was to cover cost of operations and attendance. It had remained in force until the Bureau of Hospitals was closed.
The Bureau’s records, which are inadequate in some respects, show that the highest number of hospital cases for one week, 276, was reached during the period of the typhoid epidemic. Later reports show an average of about 212 patients per week from August, 1906, to September, 1907. Of the patients sent to hospitals through the Bureau 10 per cent were children, 35 per cent men, and 55 per cent women.
The financial report of the Corporation shows that the total cost for the care of the sick to May 29, 1909, was $344,165.07. In addition, food, medical supplies, and furnishings were given to hospitals to the value of $97,670.16. Of the $344,165.07, there was expended previous to August 1, 1906, $107,396.43. The sum of $278,070.76 was paid directly to hospitals for the care of patients, on presentation of vouchers, while the balance of $66,094.31, though not paid directly to the hospitals, was expended in various ways for the benefit of the hospital patients. Between August 1, 1906, and June 1, 1909, $231,110.46 was paid directly to hospitals for the care of patients. This latter sum, less $1,960.25 which cannot be distributed, represents 134,373 days of hospital care at an average cost of $1.71 per patient per day. The average rates of the different hospitals varied from $1.07 to $2.00.
Although the rates paid by the relief funds were often less than the actual cost to the hospitals of caring for patients in normal times, it was to the advantage of the hospitals to care for the sick, many of whom they would have had to take in any case. The volume of business helped to lower the per capita cost of maintenance. It was also an incentive to the directors to increase their facilities and to private benefactors to give money toward their support.
7. RELIEVING THE JAPANESE AND CHINESE
The Japanese asked for very little relief, in part because many had difficulty in speaking English, but more generally because all were aware of the anti-Japanese feeling of a small but aggressive part of the community; this in spite of the fact that Japan contributed directly to the local committee and through the American National Red Cross nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
On April 20, independent relief associations were formed by Japanese residents in San Francisco and Oakland, but on the same day they wisely united under the name Japanese Relief Association to care for practically all their fellow countrymen.
