New York State Blue Ribbon Panel on Municipal Hospitals of New York City Transcripts of Proceedings B1202

New York State Blue Ribbon Panel on Municipal Hospitals of New York City Transcripts of Proceedings

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Overview of the Records

Repository:

New York State Archives
New York State Education Department
Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230

Summary:

The transcripts in this series document five of the Blue Ribbon Panel's six meetings. The meetings were held in connection with the panel's mandate to promote health by investigating hospital conditions and recommending improvements. The transcripts contain descriptive testimony, discussion, and the early stages of formation of recommendations to remedy substandard conditions in New York City's municipal hospitals.

Creator:

New York (State). Blue Ribbon Panel on Municipal Hospitals of New York City

Title:

Transcripts of proceedings

Quantity:

0.5 cubic feet

(5 volumes)

Inclusive Dates:

1966-1967

Series Number:

B1202

Arrangement

Chronological by date of meeting.

Scope and Content Note

The transcripts in this series document five of the Blue Ribbon Panel's six meetings. The meetings were held in connection with the Panel's function to promote health by investigating hospital conditions and recommending improvements. The transcripts contain descriptive testimony, discussion, and the early stages of formation of recommendations to remedy substandard conditions in New York City's municipal hospitals during the 1960s.

Invited speakers include State Senators Seymour R. Thaler and Norman F. Lent of the Joint Legislative Committee on Problems of Public Health, Medicare, and Medicaid; state health officials; the head of the regional Health and Hospital Planning Council; and City health officials.

Issues under discussion at first were operational problems such as unsanitary facilities, inadequate patient care, triage decisions necessitated by lack of equipment, under-staffing, and dissatisfaction among civil service employees and professional nursing staff. At later meetings, discussion focused on abuse of City-funded affiliation contracts (1961-1965) between voluntary hospitals and municipal hospitals that were intended to improve professional staffing and quality of care in the municipal hospitals. Much of the funding had been diverted to enhance salaries of medical staff at the voluntary hospitals, to develop highly specialized medical services at the expense of basic patient care, to improve medical education programs, and to attract research grants.

Themes that emerged during discussion of recommendations are the state's new influence as administrator of federal Medicare and Medicaid funds, which replace charity for the indigent with state-regulated payment, and the authority granted the state to maintain quality health care through the new State Hospital Code.

Related Material

B1072 Transcripts of Public Hearings on Medical Services Regulatory Policies, originally included this series.

Other Finding Aids

Available at Repository

Speakers' names are listed in Tables of contents of volumes for meetings on October 27, 1966 and November 16, 1966.

Volume list is available at the repository.

Custodial History

This series was separated from series B1072: Dept. of Health Transcripts of Public Hearings on Medical Services Regulatory Policies, 1969, 1971, in July, 1988.