Gladys L. Catchings is supervisor of the obstetrical department of the Freedman's Hospital in Washington.* Last summer she wished to take a post graduate course in obstetrics at Sloane Maternity Hospital. Sloane Maternity, with Presbyterian Hospital and other institutions, makes up Manhattan's splendid new Medical Centre. Negroes have contributed their mites (about $60,000) to that Medical Centre. Presbyterian Hospital, a component, was founded in 1868 to provide medical treatment for all persons without regard to creed, race or any other distinctions. Although Presbyterian Hospital now has no colored people among its board, staff, interns or nurses, it has had.†
So Supervisor Gladys L. Catchings presumed that Sloane Maternity made no discrimination against Negroes. In her application, which she sent by mail, she did not mention that she was a Negress. But she did refer to her service at Freedman's Hospital and her studies at Tuskegee Institute, both well-known Negro institutions. Her application was accepted; she went to Manhattan; she registered, was assigned to duty. Then someone complained that her dark presence was obnoxious. Sloane Maternity ousted her.
Last week the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was making a loud cry over the matter. The association pointed out: "It is well known that there is need of more colored doctors and nurses in this country. It is also well known that the opportunities accorded them for the full and adequate education and training they are eager to have are exceedingly limited. It would be nothing short of a calamity if the attitude adopted by the officers of Sloane Maternity Hospital were to be tolerated and were to become general."
Sloane Maternity officials, trapped in an embarrassing situation, last week considered the matter "closed."
*Largest (278 beds) and most important (research, clinic) of special hospitals for Negroes. Other important race hospitals are: St. Phillips at Richmond, Va., 176 beds; George W. Hubbard at Nashville, Tenn., 140 beds; Mercy at Philadelphia, 100 beds; John C. Andrews Memorial at Tuskegee, Ala., 75 beds.
†Notably Eslanda Goode Robeson, wife of Paul Robeson, lawyer, actor, spirituals-singer. She is a Spanish Negress who, after being graduated from Columbia, was an assistant pathological chemist at Presbyterian. She surrendered her profession to marry Paul Robeson in 1922.