If We Can't Cure Them, Turn Them Out of Hospitals, 1925

From the editorial page of the Aug. 20, 1925 issue of The Landmark, Statesville, N.C.

To hear the voice being made about the plan to send away from Sanatorium some tubercular patients, who after a fair trial seem to have little chance of recovery, to give room to incipient cases which may be cured, one might think that the State has at the time been meeting all demands for care and treatment in charitable institutions. That is far from the truth. Applicants at Sanatorium, as has been stated, have all the time been far ahead of the accommodations and unless a minimum fee of $1 per day could be paid they were denied admission. Treatment has never been free. Moreover, it is a fact that, with the exception of a few years now and then, following an increase of housing facilities, the hospitals for the insane have never been able to meet all the demands on them. There is usually a waiting list, but as this gets little p ublicity it has not aroused the concern that the proposal to send a few away from Sanatorium has arounsed.

As a matter of fact time may come unless the people want to be taxed to meet the situation, when cases may be evicted from the hospitals for the insane to make room for more urgent cases. The hospitals for the insane have accumulated through the years many patients who could be cared for at home, or in county homes, as well as in the hospitals. These are usually old people, senile, in second childhood, whom expert treatment can’t help. All they need is care. They are frequently unloaded on the State to relieve private homes, or the counties, of their care. If some of the folks who essay to direct the destinies of state could take a little time off from consideration of petty politics, they might do something approaching statesmanship in determining a State policy with reference to our charitable and reformatory institutions, more especially the former. Is the State to continue to try to provide for all unfortunates who may need care? If so we should realize the enormity of the task and meet it. Or should the State provide only for those who can be benefitted by expert treatment, or who must be detained for their own safety and the safety of others. The chronic cases, in the main harmless, for whom nothing can be done except to make them comfortable, are becoming an increasing burden yearly on the hospitals for the mentally ill. Unless the increase of housing accommodations is to go on indefinitely, the cases mentioned must be kept in county homes when they have no homes of their own. The counties are all the time passing the buck to the State. It is high time a policy was fixed, a line drawn.