Ose Outlines Medical Aid and Child Care Program for Liberated Jews of Europe

The vast medical and health problems that will face Jewish relief organizations after the liberation of the Jewish communities of occupied Europe were outlined here today by Dr. A. J. Rongy, chairman of the American Committee of Ose, the Society for the Protection of Health Among Jews. The Ose program, as set forth in Dr. Rongy’s statement provides for the following measures:

1. The immediate feeding of Jewish children through children’s canteens, dispensaries, day-nurseries and special distribution centers, also distribution of food supplies to families and furnishing of nourishing lunches to school children. The feeding of no less than 100,000 children daily for at least the first few months after the war may be anticipated.

2. Re-building and repair of Jewish hospitals with special wards for patients with infectious diseases, children and mental patients. Supplying of the hospitals with medical equipment, instruments, beds, linen and drugs. Restoration of the well-known Jewish hospitals of Warsaw, Lodz, Cracow, Vilno, Lemberg, Kovno, Riga, Vienna, Frankfurt and Strasburg is considered by the Ose as one of the first and most important tasks.

3. Re-building of the clinics and consultation centers of the “Ose-Toz,” furnishing them with instruments, drugs and medical personnel. Nearly 150 of such institutions functioned before the war, the majority of them will have to be re-built and re-furnished.

4. Restoration of damaged children’s camps, children’s homes and children’s sanatoria to receive immediately children in need of treatment, special food and rest.

5. Re-building and repair of Jewish bathing establishments, laundries, sanatoria for tuberculars as well as of institutions to fight favus and trachoma wherever they may be urgently needed.

6. The gathering of stocks of various drugs, serums, vitamins and instruments in free neutral countries so as to have them available for distribution to Jewish communities immediately upon their liberation. Such preparatory work is already in progress in Switzerland and a credit of 500,000 Swiss France is needed urgently.

7. Restoration of Jewish schools and courses for nurses as well as the immediate organization of short-term courses for the rapid training of the auxiliary medical personnel which will be urgently needed for the relief work.

All these tasks can be carried on by the restored Committees of the Ose, and the Toz in Poland, with the aid of special authorized representatives from abroad, Dr. Rongy said. He indicated that the present plan is outlined in a general form; the particulars, according to specific localities, the kind of needed institutions, etc., will come later, in the course of liberation and investigation of conditions on the spot.