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Show How About a Hospital For Springville? In keeping with the policy of the Springville Herald to keep its columns open for the presentation of both sides to any question, l the following articles have been submitted for your consideration : MORE ABOUT A HOSPITAL Before anything is undertaken in the interest of private or public welfare it is always a very important im-portant thing to first determine the need, the size, cost, and method me-thod of financing. In all of these particulars, we can get much help by making use of facts and information infor-mation obtained from the experience exper-ience of others who have developed develop-ed such projects. The . need, therefore, of hospitalization hos-pitalization as determined by the American Medical association's committee on economy in the United Unit-ed States is that on an average in any given year, one person out of fourteen is in need of hospital care. If Springville, then, is an average aver-age American community of 6000 people then 14 of 6000 people or 42 8 persons should have hospital care. That means that approximately approxim-ately 35 persons in Springville per month need to go somewhere for hospitalization. What number of beds in a hospital is adequate to hospitalize thirty-five people per month? In order to make a fair estimate of this it is necessary to determine the average length of time patients remain in a hospital. Again facts already available will from the American Medical association's Economic committee, the average length of time spent in hospital per patient is 7.9 days. This we find corresponds very closely to the experience of a local Utah County Hospital in which the average ave-rage time of 80 consecutive patients pat-ients was 7 days in the hospital in which group 2 3 days was the longest stay and one day the shortest. For the sake of safety if eight days, which is well above the national and local avarage is used as a basis for compution then 8 x 35 or 280 hospital bed days per month would be required for our community. Inasmuch as one bed will furnish 30 bed days per month if continuously occupied, 7 beds would be sufficient to furnish fur-nish 280 hospital days per month. But people have a pecular way of getting sick. If one gets sick then the neighbors have to follow and a hosptital may be more than full or nearly empty at any given time. The A. A. A. again suggests that in figuring hospital needs at least 2 5 per cent additional beds over the actual number required should take care of peak load conditions. But considering commuinity growth and peak load conditions, not fewer than 100 per cent more beds should be figured in the original set up which would be approximately -14-15 beds. It is. however apparent that the size of a hospital building should be of such dimensions as not only to accomodate the required number num-ber of beds but also the other equipment such as kitchen, operating oper-ating room, X Ray laboratory, laundry, etc. of standard grade, and while a hospital costs equipment equip-ment is provided for does not materially ma-terially alter the total cost. As stated the cost is estimated on a bed unit basis and that like everything every-thing else can range from $1500 per bed to any price. In one of the counties of Wyoming, Wyom-ing, there is a hospital of eighty-five eighty-five bed capacity at a cost of $1,705.00 per bed. (Continued on page 8) THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION Let us look at a few of the facts involved in considering the advisability ad-visability of building a hospital in Springville. A hospital would entail the expenditure of from fifty to one hundred thousand dollars. dol-lars. Springville City would have to be bonded for that amount, and after paying interest upon those bonds for a number of years it would amount to considerable more. The assessed valuation of Springville is approximately one million five hundred thousand dollars. dol-lars. Therefore, in order to pay the principal It would require an assement of thirty three mills, extended, ex-tended, of course, over a number of years. Besides this, the interest on the bonds would amount to about one half according to the number of years the bonds run. It may be done as a W. P. A. project, but I understand that our amount has been allocated; therefore, there-fore, we would have to make a loan, and the entire amount would have to be paid by the city. It is definately known that hospitals hos-pitals are not self-supporting. Therefore, there would be a deficit de-ficit each month of five hundred dollars or more, if we could count on an average of about ten patients pa-tients each month. From the analysis an-alysis of other institutions, the cost of maintaining a fifty-thousand dollar hospital would be about one thousand dollars a month. This allows nothing for depreciation, which is supposed to be about 2 per cent of the cost of the building. The Superintendent's report of the Utah Valley Hospital is as follows: Operating Deficit for December De-cember 19 39 $1142.6 4; Operating Operat-ing Deficit foT the last three months of the y(tar $3616.06. Hospital payroll for the month of January was $3561.48. A well-equipped hospital like the Utah Valley Hospital has a superintendent, assistant superintendent, superin-tendent, night supervisor, operating operat-ing room supervisor, obstetric supervisor, fulltime resident physician, phys-ician, anesthetist, laboratory technician, tech-nician, dietitian, eighteen registered register-ed nurses, and three nurse attendants, attend-ants, five janitors, laundress and two assistants, cook and four assistants as-sistants and two maids. Besides these, there are on the Hospital Staff, a Roentgenologist,, (x-ray specialist), pathologist, laboratory labora-tory director and electrocardiograph electrocardio-graph Director. This institution is as well equip-per equip-per as any hospital in the entire West. It is adequate to handle all hospital cases in Utah County far better than any other hospital can do. The Utah Valley Hospital will not become a burden to the tax payers of Utah County as there is an agreement with the Commonwealth Common-wealth Fund of New York to maintain main-tain same. The Board agrees so to operate the hospital as to secure the approval ap-proval of the American College of Surgeons for this class of hospital. In order to do this, some physicians phys-icians think they are discriminated discriminat-ed against. Having an adequately-equipped hospital too near, the tax payers of Springville should not be burdened bur-dened in building and maintain-in maintain-in a hospital. Springville is very much in (Continued on page 8) TUB OTHER SIDI'J OK THE Ql'KSTIOX (Continued from Page One) need of procuring more water for culinary use, and developing more power, as I understand that they expend nearly seven thousand dollars dol-lars for electric power in excess of the power they derive from hydroelectric hydro-electric plants during the year 1939. President Roosevelt advocated the establishment of hospitals In those districts where there were no hospitals, whether publicly or privately owned. There is such a thing as getting over-hospitalized. MOltE AHOUT A HOSPITAL (Continued from Page One) The Utah Valley Hospital Is said to have cost $20,000 and it has a fifty bed capacity which would make the bed unit price 14,000. On the other hand a community hospital at Payson of thirty-five bed capacity cost $52,000 or approximately ap-proximately $1485 per bed. If Springville would contemplate contem-plate a hospital of 15-20 bed capacity, cap-acity, at a bed unit cost of $2000, from the foregoing It is apparent that it would be adequate in size for present and future needs, for its cost would not be prohibitive as most of It could be obtained by fedoral grant if President Roosevelt's Roose-velt's suggestion is carried out. If $168,000 can be obtained for stroet and sewer Improvements, Is it less important to spend 30-40 or even 50 thousand for the health of the county in the erection of a hospital? |