The hospitals being constructed out of the Langley Bill (Act of 4 March 1921) and appropriations for the Public Health Service made either by the Secretary of the Treasury or the United States Veterans’ Bureau which will become available during the two years ending with the calendar year of 1923, will only provide 7,198 beds, while during the same period of the time the Bureau will lose 5,397 beds for the reasons already indicated. The ultimate loss of beds by reason of expiration of lease, temporary nature of the structure, etc., will be approximately 4,875 greater than the beds which will be provided as result of construction now going on under existing appropriations.
From careful studies that have been made, it is evident the Bureau will require additional hospital facilities at the following points:
500 beds for tuberculosis patients in the State of California; 500 beds for insane in California; 200 beds in Chicago to enable the Edward Hynes Jr. Hospital to be converted into a hospital for mental cases; 150 beds for general medical and surgical cases in the vicinity of Memphis; 600 beds for general medical and surgical cases in the metropolitan area of New York; 250 beds for general medical and surgical cases at the Walter Reed Hospital _____ 2,200
It has recently become apparent that the neuro-psychiatric hospital at Marion, Indiana, operated by the National Home for Volunteer Disabled Soldiers, can only care for nervous and mild mental cases, and is not prepared to handle definitely insane. Development in the future may make it necessary, therefore, to ask for further provision for insane at that or some other point in the country east of the Mississippi River.
Estimating that we will have approximately 2,000 or 2,500 cases in contract institutions for many years, the Bureau is endeavoring to provide for a maximum load of about 32,000 cases, the peak probably being reached in 1922. It is estimated that the general medical and surgical cases will diminish rapidly, but that permanent beds for the treatment of approximately 13,000 tuberculosis, and 9,500 neuro-psychiatric cases must be available.
Gentlemen, I have attempted briefly to outline the growth and the magnitude of our hospitalization program, and have told you roughly what the expectation and needs of the United States Veterans’ Bureau in regard to hospitalization facilities are. It is all summed up in our earnest endeavor of the United States Government to provide every ex-soldier, sailor, marine or nurse who becomes a beneficiary is the United States Veterans’ Bureau with the best medical treatment available under the best conditions possible. But in spite of our needs for additional governmental hospital facilities, I want to assure you all that to my best knowledge there is not a single veteran of the World War, eligible for treatment and who has applied for hospital treatment, for whom hospital facilities have not been found or who has not been offered hospitalization.”