Group hospital insurance as the only logical method of continuing the work of private charitable hospital and doctors was the plan offered here by Louis Roth, superintendent of Barnert hospital, in his report at the annual meeting held Monday.
“If the private charitable hospital and private doctors are to survive, then they must develop some rational system of bringing their services within the buying power of the average wage earner. It seems to me,” declared Roth. “that group hospital insurance of $9 to $12 per person, is the practical solution to this problem. I feel that the time has come when we must give our serious consideration to the adoption of this new plan in Paterson. It is the only way out for the public, for the hospital, and for the doctor.”
President Jacob Katz reported that the total hospital days care during 1933 was 35,183, of which 16,414 were free and 6,791 were partly paid. It amounted to an increase of 1,000 hospital days’ are over 1932.
“In, the dispensary,” he said there were 12,647 visits made in 1933, as compared with 8,380 in 1932, and 4,316 visits in 1931, an increase of 300 per cent in a period of two years.”
An operating deficit of $29,729.84 was reduced by the ladies’ auxiliary, ladies’ linen society, membership dues, donations, and proceeds from a membership campaign, to $14,013.89.
Re-elected to the Barnert hospital board were Sender Federbush, Herman Geller, John Charney, Nathan Greenspan, Jacob Fabian, Filbert L. Rosenstein, M. D. Rafner and Samuel Grobart.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
