Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 13)

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 Governor Huey Long. In 1885, the first ambulance service at An underlying reaCharity Hospital began. At that time third and son for the Medical fourth year Tulane medical students comSociety’s rush to find peted via testing for a spot as an intern at explanations for overCharity. Once made an intern, the student crowding other than had to live in the hospital, “subject to call, genuine need was day or night, to any of the duties assigned to probably fear of comhim.” Every eight days the intern was subject petition for paying to 48 continuous hours of ambulance duty. customers. Charity This practice continued well into the 1960s. Hospital historian John Salvaggio reports that “Southern Baptist Hospital and Touro Infirmary claimed that paying wards would put them out of business.” 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. SQUABBLES OVER FUNDING The proposal was rejected by the PWA in December 1933. The financial arrangements were Fall 2007/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 13 HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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