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C H A P T E R 1 0 THE NEW ORLEANS CHARITY HOSPITAL Louisiana is the only state in the Union with hospitals providing medical care to those who cannot pay for it. The original New Orleans Charity Hospital was built in 1736 with an endowment from a French shipbuilder. The institution wore out or lost to fire four buildings. The fifth, built in 1832, was falling apart in 1933 when its board of administrators asked that the Public Works Administration (PWA) fund a replacement. In order to cover its 70 percent of the project, the board proposed adding paying beds. Paying beds in a charity hospital? Betrayal of a tradition almost 200 years old? The idea provoked a howl of protest from members of the Orleans Parish Medical Society. They could not deny that many of the buildings being used by Charity Hospital were in bad shape. The leaking roofs, termite-eaten walls, and caving floors were obvious to casual inspection . Nor could they ignore the overcrowded wards where patients slept two to a bed, in chairs, and on floors.1 They could, however, argue that the overcrowding was unnecessary. One problem was that patients came to Charity from all parts of the state. They often, argued the Medical Society, stayed after treatment was completed, while transportation was being arranged. If the patient was a child or an elder, a family member might be staying with him or her in the hospital. This could be dealt with, the Medical Society suggested, by adding charity wards to other hospitals throughout the state. Another cause of crowding, alleged the society, was widespread abuse of Charity facilities by people who could afford to go elsewhere. These were people with political connections, particularly friends of Huey Long’s.2 An underlying reason for the Medical Society’s rush to find explanations for overcrowding other than genuine need was probably fear of com138 NEW ORLEANS CHARITY HOSPITAL 139 petition for paying customers. Hospital historian John Salvaggio reports that ‘‘Southern Baptist Hospital and Touro Infirmary claimed that paying wards would put them out of business.’’3 Alfred Danziger, head of the board of administrators, replied that patients at Charity stayed on average 16.6 days, no longer than those at other city hospitals. He agreed that some prominent people and their relatives had been treated at Charity, but said they were emergency cases. He denied widespread abuse. He noted that the hospital had an average daily occupancy of 2,185 patients in 1932 and had beds for only 1,756. At the time of writing, November 1933, the hospital housed 2,400 patients. In the preceding five years, he said, the number of people served had increased 70 percent.4 The proposal was disapproved by the PWA in December 1933. The financial arrangements were judged inadequate even with the paying beds. The PWA was not sure Charity had the authority to issue revenue bonds. Nor was it sure the state would back the bonds if the revenue did not meet expectations.5 The board then made a second attempt. It tried to mollify the opposition by scaling down the size of the proposal, cutting back from $9.85 million to $8 million. The board had originally asked for 2,930 beds; this was reduced to 2,370. The Orleans Parish Medical Society replied with a list of forty-eight abuses involving treatment of those unqualified for charity . It included Huey Long’s niece, Governor O.K. Long and his nephew, the son of House Speaker Allen Ellender, a police captain, and a variety of state and Louisiana State University employees. A new charge was added: hospital use figures had been inflated by mass tonsillectomies given to schoolchildren.6 In June Huey Long entered the dispute. He marched into a state Judiciary Committee hearing and took over the microphone. He announced that he had a new plan to finance the hospital. The pay beds would be withdrawn, and in their place the state’s corporation tax would be raised from $1.00 to $1.50 per thousand dollars of income. He drafted a committee of doctors, lawyers, and labor union officials and told them to get busy on a new proposal.7 Long then prodded Ickes, assuring him that the loan to the hospital was now ‘‘gilt-edged and so secure that there should be no difficulty.’’ He claimed that the opposing physicians were now converted because he had withdrawn...

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