Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 14)

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. 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 48 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. 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 The pay beds would be withdrawn, and in their place the state’s corporation tax would be raised from $1.00 to $1.50 per thousand dollars of income. He drafted a committee of doctors, lawyers, and labor union officials and told Charity Hospital’s outdated facilities (above left) were replaced with a statethem to get busy on a new proposal. Long then prodded national PWA director Harold 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 He claimed that the opposing physicians were now converted because he had withdrawn the plan for paying beds. But the Medical Society had not withdrawn from the field. It saw in the situation an opportunity to gain some control over Charity Hospital. The society announced that it would be willing to accept a total of 2,300 beds, including 360 in the units that would not be replaced. However, there were conditions. The society wanted two members of the hospital board of supervisors appointed from a list approved by the state medical society and two appointed from the Orleans Parish Medical Society. It also wanted to deny the hospital the right to enter into any contracts for medical services. Ickes’ staff was inclined to favor the project and found little substance in the medical establishment’s opposition. State Engineer Orloff Henry met with the Orleans Parish Medical Society in August 1934. He found “few, in any, of its members have given serious study to the proposed plan.” Orloff noted that although the argument for decentralizing Charity and dispersing beds HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION of-the-art art deco hospital tower (above and opposite page) and new ambulance barn (below) following construction of a new PWAauthorized hospital complex in the 1930s. 14 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2007 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

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.