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However. Your service day and night Saturdays Sundays holiday around the clock and around the calendar hospital all right at your service. The work the American Hospital Association and its member hospitals in your community present at your service I transcribe series in the public interest designed to take you behind the scenes in your hospital or walk far in the background of your mind seldom emerging into the conscious state runs a thought like this if I should get sick if I should have to have an operation the hospital will be there I can go to the hospital that vastly important institution in community life you give but have gradually thought and then only if you don't feel quite up to par Otherwise it never enters your head and its problems for it does have many problems are far removed from your knowledge and you wouldn't understand this conversation between the trustee and the hospital administrator. I've been a trustee of this hospital for nearly ten years Mr Kennedy and it seems to me as if these problems simply multiply are difficult times Mr Jackson cost of been going up but yes I know it's all of my cost and business and the public seems to accept the fact that they have in my business that is what we've had to raise the price of our commodity a good many times not making any excess profit but just to break even and nobody says much about it no because they seem to understand and yet when it comes to the cost of health care where I am to feel that the hospital has no right to charge more for its service that's right yes Mr Jackson Believe me I know that our costs of been going up and going up and there doesn't seem to be any end of course not Mrs Kennedy not once sixty days seventy percent of your operating cost is in payroll alone after all business and industry has had to keep pace with salary advances I've had to in my business and were never on the forty hour week as you know people somehow it's that the hospital employees the word swing shift night and day and for some peculiar reason to do it just because it was hospital work of course and that doesn't hold water the Naga fur is just another group and she's not going to work a longer work week off for less money for a hospital just because it's a hospital no we've had to compete with the labor market Mr Jackson and we've had to pay at least halfway comparable salaries and bring our working week down and pay differentials for evening and night work of course you have after all you can't expect a person to work longer hours and for less just because it's part of a hospital of course there are some imply. Please who feel that sense of dedication and devotion that even with them it doesn't seem that the public should take advantage they're worthy of their hire it seems to me I don't know a measure Canaday as the cost of hospital operation have gone up and it seems that people have grown more impatient about it even though they don't pay as much for the hospital care as they do for a payment on the new car or e even the new refrigerator or the television set it just doesn't shame is important to them somehow people just resent getting sick they didn't ask for a narrow take that makes no difference they should anticipated one out of every eight or nine people will go to the hospital this year one from a break three or four families it's simply improvident not to expect and anticipate that so you say and I agree but you just can't imagine how hard it is to tell people that but people ought to be reasonable they ought to expect to spend as much on hospital care as well as I spend on amusement as I believe that too but it's a crime that's what it is I'm not going to put up with all this sounds like a job for the administrator this I get half a dozen times a day Mr Jackson and trustee should stay out of the firing line I guess well I'd like to listen misc and I think I'll just stay here and listen to what the public. Strong you could hold a person up to the point of a gun but you just say I've got to arrange for this bill before I can take my wife out of your your laziness Smith plane Smith and who are you I'm Mrs Kennedy the administrator of this hospital I thought that case so your just the person I wanted to talk to I saw that was probably the case that's why I came out this bill in the first place it's too high that's what it's too much money in well don't you have Blue Cross No I never bother with that oh that's too bad this bill is Mrs Smith your wife yes just in here eleven days for an operation and look at that I ask you just look at that Mrs Smith was here in a private room of course she was I wanted a private room for I can afford it I guess well then why on earth all these other things all your trying to do is hold me up just because my wife's been sick and who could help that I ask you who could help that she didn't do it on purpose that's why the hospitals here to take care of people when they get sick whether they get sick knowingly or not you see this is a nonprofit community hospital nonprofit. Anybody can see you're making a profit with a bill like this. Why it averages up to practically fifteen dollars a day for her care anybody can he is Mr Smith we gave your wife the best possible care we turned maybe you did I'm not denying that maybe you did but here you want your money right now cash on the barrelhead But if you can't afford it we'll make some arrangements for payment Mr Smith we try not to unless it's absolutely necessary for you see we don't have any vested interests or any reserves we've got to pay our bills every month as they come in and we need our money it's not like a business that has the means of taking care of things like that you mean you operate on a cash basis we have to. If we made a profit it'd be different but we don't we merely try to break even and we don't do that very often you see costs have gone up so much lately agent mean your cost of going up to I know mine I have in my business. But it doesn't look like ours are no different Believe me we buy food meat and vegetables and butter and milk all the grocery supplies even a hotel must buy and costs are up well the way my wife gripes about high cost of groceries and we must buy supplies linens drugs the quick money the hundred and one things a hospital needs and costs have been rising steadily well and have for me too and our payroll mentions salaries to me I guess I've got a business of my own hospital employees for the most part were not paid comparable with industry and a lot of them working longer hours than they did in industry and all hours three shifts around the clock you mean you keep this place going twenty four hours a day well Mr Smith if your wife punched the light at her bed for some service at three in the morning you don't think it went on answer do you well do you no no no she said everybody was mighty nice doing here all the time and drugs she had a pretty fair sized drug deal here yeah she had an awful bad infection when she came in and these modern drugs stopped it right now no long treatment no weeks on end in the hospital no no all the doctor said he got it under control pretty quick. And yet you know just a few years ago she divan a patient well maybe for a week maybe she wouldn't have made the complete recovery she now has but don't you think it's worth it well why you don't consider your own wife's life worth well maybe a downpayment on an automobile Oh that's not fair I just never thought about it in that way and perhaps you should Mr Smith you see I don't want to be put in the position of defending the costs of hospital care maybe it is high compared with some other things but what I think of as the. Of what value is it to you what does it mean to you to have your wife Well again it ought to be worth something shouldn't it well yes it well it's worth a lot to me and after all we gave your wife careful and still service around the clock she got all the laboratory tests she needed to give your doctor the information he needed to treat her case she had the X. rays he wanted to see what the whole story was and she got all her meals three times a day and an exact accord with your doctor's orders and twenty four hours a day she got expert nursing service all she had to do is punch a button that lighted a light and the nurse was there to see what your wife needed she got all the new and modern drugs your doctor wanted through the hospital pharmacy I don't know Mr Smith seems to me as if your wife got quite a lot of service for the amount shown here on the bill I guess you are a fast talker man but what you say makes sense. Maybe I was a little hasty You see our payroll costs alone run from sixty to seventy percent of our total operating expense Mr Smith and we simply don't make our total costs from the amounts paid by the patients you don't know we don't but how do you get by then after all you gotta make back what you put out and we don't do that not quite You see we operate nonprofit and when the money paid by patients doesn't quite come up to our expenses as often happens well we just trust that somehow somewhere somebody will give us the money we need because there are people who believe in supporting hospitals you know people who know that good health care as expensive and that all too often the community doesn't care to us humans responsibility or knowledge here don't go to jumping to any conclusions I guess I can afford to pay my wife's bill nobody else has to take care of it for me and look I'd like I didn't get your name Mrs Kennedy I'm the administrator of the hospital at Mrs Kennedy I saw some kids up there in the ward look kind of like they couldn't Well anyway I'd like to have some extra time I check here and you do you buy something the hospital needs where you just kind of in remembrance for what you did for my why. The one mankind beneath the veneer of civilization is a kindly being and interested in the welfare of his brothers and people knowing that modern hospital care has lessened their days in a hospital bed and made their final reckoning that much less people are not reluctant to settle the score when they know the facts only they need to know those facts. Many people do not know that behind their community hospital is a board of trustees civic minded men and women who give their time with no compensation because they understand the importance of good hospital care for a community they expect no a lot of Tory comments and no thanks because their compensation comes from doing a job in community service but when their contribution becomes known people wonder and ask themselves isn't there something I should be doing to help my hospital after all it's here to take care of me and the circled ripples from the drops on broad and stretched forth and touch many lives and the hospital gathers strength and courage to face another day. Another surge of patients through those doors that never close or or analyze extends itself years into the future as medical science works against a background of hospital service. For more information about the service your hospital gives listen to your service transcribe series by the American Hospital Association and its member hospitals in your community who believe that a high quality of hospital care should be available to you arm to all people or are. More or. More or. War or or or. The or are.