Medicine: Health in Poverty?

When, on the advice of his Surgeon-General, President Hoover told the country: ”The public health has apparently never been better than it has been over the past six months” (TIME, Aug. 31), some commenting was to be expected. Last week some came from New York, taking loud exception.

“An unfortunate statement,” bitterly remarked New York City’s Department of Hospitals. New York hospitals and clinics have been overcrowded with 25% more patients than normal during full employment times. The staffs hear of people who “cannot afford to be sick,” who defer treatment, operations. For the municipal hospitals alone the budget requires $25,326,000, an enforced increase over last year of $5,800,000. Surgeon-General Cummings’ report, complained the New Yorkers, “excludes epidemics and, covering only 13 unmentioned States, deals only in mortalities.”