Mayor Orders City-Wide Investigation Following Higgins’ Report
Charges of anti-Jewish discrimination in Kings County Hospital brought by a committee of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers following the hazing of three Jewish internes last June by their non-Jewish colleagues were fully substantiated in an inquiry made by Commissioner of Accounts, James A. Higgins.
The inquiry disclosed that together with the intolerance and discrimination there obtained in the hospital a negligence and inefficiency, “rank favoritism” and “pull” which constituted a danger to the velfare of the patients and to the good epute of the city institution.
Commissioner Higgins’ report cites twenty-five points in which this state of affairs manifests itself. Among the obervations made are the following:
“That the treatment accorded three Jewish internes on June 20, 1927, was brutal and unprecedented in the history of the institution.
“That the internes as a body have been accorded too much license and latitude by the hospital management in the determination of their professional and social amenities among themselves, with the inevitable result that race prejudice and discrimination manifested themselves in the wards and in the staff house.
“That the determination by the social investigators at the hospital of which patients or relatives of patients should reimburse the city for the patients’ maintenance at the hospital reeks with favoritism and injustice.”
A sweeping investigation into conditions and practices in all city hospitals was ordered by Mayor Walker as a result of the report of mismanagement in Kings County Hospital made by Commissioner of Accounts Higgins.
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