Medicine: Hospital Facts

If 955,072 people in the U. S. got sick at the same moment there would be enough hospital beds for them. But if residents in 40% of the counties in the U. S. got sick they would find no hospital for community use in their counties. These and other facts were given out in the ninth annual hospital report of the American Medical Association, released last week.

Other facts: there are 187 fewer “approved” hospitals than last year; 504 hospitals last year lost their “approved” rating; hospitals for nervous and mental cases are increasing more rapidly than all other types combined; nervous and mental cases hospitalized increased from 349,667 in 1927 to 395,407 last year; “by 1934 we will have more than 500,000” such cases. The proportion of hospital beds in constant use was 65.5%, lowest ever found by this survey.