Six 100-bed base hospitals and 250 fitted doctors’ bags will shortly be sent by the Joint Distribution Committee to aid the 2,000,000 Polish refugees in Siberia, of whom 600,000 are Jewish, it was announced today by Dr. J.J. Golub, Executive Director of the Hospital for Joint Diseases, acting as spokesman for the Medical Committee of the JDC.
“The supplies which the JDC is now purchasing for shipment to Siberia, Turkestan and Uzbekistan,” Dr. Golub stated, “are being bought out of an initial appropriation of $100,000 made by the JDC for a medical relief program in behalf of Polish refugees of all faiths there. Recent reports stress the high mortality rate among these people, who were uprooted from their homes in Eastern Poland and find themselves in remote and barren areas of Siberia. Because of the lack of necessary health and medical facilities and sanitary services, they live under most primitive conditions. The most prevalent of epidemic diseases among them is typhus fever, which takes a heavy toll. Scurvy is frequent among children.”
Explaining that there are 600 to 800 physicians among the Polish refugees who are well trained in medicine and could supervise sanitary and health programs, Dr. Golub stated: “Unfortunately, the physicians in Siberia find themselves without the tools with which to exercise their professions. With the shipment of 250 fitted doctors’ bags, these physicians will be able to do much to alleviate suffering. Each bag will contain essential diagnostic and therapeutic instruments, such as a stethoscope, a blood-pressure apparatus, a clinical thermometer, etc.; bandages and gauze, and a careful selection of drugs and antiseptics for the treatment of injuries.”
Each of the six hospital units will contain all of the necessary medical and surgical supplies, laboratory reagents and supplies, diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical instruments, linens, swap, gauze, bandages, adhesive plaster and all drugs and antiseptics needed for a 100-bed hospital. All that will be necessary will be for the refugees to furnish a building with 100 wooden cots and prepare the same number of straw mattresses in order to have a fully-equipped hospital unit when the supplies arrive. The covers for the mattresses will be included in the shipment. “With the material the Joint Distribution Committee is shipping, every form of surgery, major and minor, can be performed,” Dr. Golub said. The purchasing of all medical equipment, Dr. Golub stated, is being supervised by a Medical Advisory Committee made up of representatives of the JDC and the American Committee of Ose.
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