Present Hospital Very Inadequate Dec. 6, 1904 news

Dr. C. R. Holmes, president of the new city hospital commission, in a formal statement addressed to the Board of Public Service Monday, answered the statements made by Dr. Fackler Friday to the effect that there are three wards standing empty in the Cincinnati hospital to-day, and if these wards were occupied there would be room enough for 120 additional patients, which would give the hospital all the additional room needed for a long time to come. Replying to this statement of Dr. Fackler, Dr. Holmes said:
“Such a statement made by the president of the medical staff should naturally carry much weight with it and justify the public in asking why build a new hospital if these are the facts. That the first part of this statement is in part erroneous and entirely misleading, and the last statement absolutely incorrect, I shall prove by the following statement of facts and figures, the correctness of which I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. For, unless explained, it would give the impression to the public that these wards had been standing empty for lack of patients to fill them, when, as I shall show, two of these were vacated by the nurses this summer in order to prepare them for patients.

“The three wards referred to are A, J and P. J is not empty; one-half of it is given up to contagious diseases, while the other half is cut up into small rooms to house the ward maids, two in each room, as there is absolutely no other place to put these women. If they have to live outside it would mean considerable additional expense, and besides it is necessary for the interest of the service to have them directly under the housekeeper’s control; that reduces the empty wards under consideration to two.

“From the time the hospital was built till 1893, Wards A and P were used for private or pay patients, where any physician in Cincinnati, whether or not connected with the hospital staff, could take and attend his patients. But in 1893, when the contract with the Society of the Cincinnati Training School for Nurses was canceled (the nurses of said society did not reside in the hospital) and the hospital started a training school of its own, this ward was occupied by the Training school (Dr. Hendly was then the superintendent), so as to give room for the growing number of nurses. While the rooms had only been intended for one patient, two nurses were placed in each, thus accommodating 28 nurses—the rest still sleeping in rooms of the various wards. This condition existed till about two years ago, when the increase of patients and nurse again demanded expansion, and it was found necessary to close Pay Ward A and put 28 nurses in there, this being in one of the short buildings, giving a ward 88 feet long, which should hold only 24 patients.

“Thus 56 nurses were provided for; the balance still had to sleep in various parts of he hospital. The number of patients continued to increase till, during the winter of 1903-4 many of them slept on rows of mattresses placed upon the floor, the population reaching its highest number on January 25, 1904, when there were 576 patients in the Twelfth street hospital and 118 at the branch, and to the shame of Cincinnati, and to any one, physician or layman, who fails to recognize the injustice of such crowding.

There were 74 patients crowded into E ward, medical, where, according to all rules of hospital hygiene, there should be only 32! And two more in the small en d rooms—34; (these really should not be counted as one at least and under such crowded conditions both should be reserved for dying patients) thus leaving 40 more patients in this ward than should have existed. Ward B had been closed for the sake of economy, but then permission was granted to open it—but even that failed to relieve the congestion to any extent.

“According to the accepted standard of hospital hygiene, there should have been only 24 beds in the following nine wards, each 88 feet long, i. e., B, C, G, H, I, J, K, L, Q, R, and 32 in the 118 feet wards, D, E, F, M, N, O. Now if every bed were occupied bearing in mind that there should be only eight beds for contagious diseases in south end J ward (the north end, as already stated, being used for ward maids), there still were 190 more patients than beds. It was this condition which caused the medical directors to advise and your honorable board to secure a building on Clark street in which to house the nurses, so as to give A and P wards for the poor sick, and on June 1st of this year the training school was transferred, but even this building will only house 64 of the 77 nurses employed to-day in the Twelfth street hospital. This is all the pupil nurses which, as you will see, constitutes by far the largest per cent of the 13 head nurses still remaining in the rooms connected with the wards of the hospital.

“During the summer months the number of patients reaches its lowest level, hence the Wards A and P vacated by the nurses last June were not opened in order to economize as much as possible. But with the advent of the winter the number of patients will steadily rise, and it will now be necessary to prepare these wards. As they are now partitioned off, there are 11 small rooms, 12 feet 6 inches by 10 feet, making 125 square feet of floor space, which is a little more than needed for one patient, and by far too little for two (even if two beds, a washstand, a chiffonier, a wardrobe and two chairs, and possibly a small table, had been crowded into each for the past 12 or 14 years, for the use of the nurses in P ward), by rights there should be only one patient in each room. Then there are two larger rooms (the old, dining-room and kitchen), which will hold two, or by crowding, three beds each, making in all 17 patients in each of Wards P and A, as no constituted, or if the partitions are all town out and the wards replastered, floored and painted, at a considerable cost, each 88 feet long, it will give you 24 beds in each, or 48 for both, if you give each patient sufficient floor space.

“The total capacity without crowding would be as follows:
A. (to be opened) 24 beds, male
B. 24 beds, overflow from E. medical, male
C. 24 beds, venereal, male
D. 32 beds, surgical, male
E. 32 beds, medical, male
F. 32 beds, surgical
G. (divided) 10 measles, south end, 1,269 square feet; 5 scarlet fever, north end, 702 square feet, allowing 125 square feet for contagious fever patients.
G. (Annex) 4 diphtheria (small rooms over drug sore.
H. 22 beds
H. 33 beds. Neurological, eye, ear, nose and throat.
I. 32 beds. Colored medical and surgical, etc.
J. Measles or scarlet fever overflow. (This contains four rooms, each 10 x 13 feet. By rights only one fever patient should go in there, but allowing two gives us 8 beds, and if you utilize the dining-room it makes two more, or ten.
K. Cynecological,(sic) 22 beds. (Also a 24-bed ward, but part of space cut off by entrance to amphitheater. Female.
(3) 1. Now used for strong wards, erysipelas, suspected smallpox, delirium, etc. Colored and white mixed. 24 beds. Half of this ward was divided into 6 rooms for desperate and isolation cases.
M. 32 beds. Female surgical. Skin.
N. 32 beds. Medical and neurological, female
(4) O. 32 beds. Venerial (sic)
P. (To be opened) 24 beds
Q. 24 beds. Obstetrical
R. 24 beds, children’s
Total 476 beds.
Which is exactly 100 beds less than there were patients in the hospital on January 25, 1904. and only 14 more beds than there were patients in the hospital on last Saturday, December 3. With the winter still before us! And there are no more wards to open, and even if the new hospital is begun at once I presume it will not be ready for occupancy before three years, so I fail to see where the patients will be put when the hospital population is heaviest—during the winter months, for I know that this board does not desire, nor has the city the moral right to heard (sic) them as has, for want of space and funds, b een done at times past in some of the wards, more like cattle than sick human beings.”

Disputing the statement that nine-tenths of the medical staff of the hospital were in favor of the present site, Dr. Holmes had the a clerk read 21 letters from the members of the staff. Nineteen favored the hilltop site. Dr. Holmes said there were about 40 on the staff, and he would present letters later from all. He said so far as he knew but six favored the present location, and they were “connected with an institution within a stone’s throw of the present hospital.”

The members of the staff who favored the hill were: Drs. G. M. Allen, Jos. Eichberg, E. W. Mitchell, N. P. Dandridge, J. E. Griwe, A. H. Freiberg, A. Ravogli, C. S. Evans, H. W. Bettman, D. T. Vaikl, B. F. Lyle, J. W. Rowe, A. C. Poole, L. E. Cook, Frank Fee, W. H. Crane, B. K. Rachford, Robert Sattler, S. E. Allen and Joseph Ransohoff. Dr. C. L. Bonifield was doubtful, and Dr. O. P. Holt was against removal.

Dr. Holmes also stated that two weeks ago at a meeting of the Academy of Medicine, with seventy-nine members present, resolutions of confidence in the commission and favoring the hill site had been adopted, with but five voting against. He was surprised that these resolutions had not been sent to the B. P. S. and said he would see that they were.

The board agreed to grant the committee of the Taxpayers’ association a hearing on Wednesday at 11 a.m.