The chairman of the City Board of Health Monday told the City Council that he was "appalled" by a Parkway and Park Commission directive designating two physicians to treat commission employes in-jured on the job. 1 "We don't want any part of that," the chairman* Dr. Nicholas J. Accardo, told the council when William W. Shaw, pty civil service personnel director, read from the directive ;issued on May 31, 1963, by Felix Seeger, commission superintendent.
The directive designated Dr. Frank Gomi1a, 624 Maison Blanche Building, to treat cases not requiring immediate attention excepting eye cases for which Dr. A. Failla. 3024 Gentilly, was listed as the physician.
Answering questions at 1964 city budget hearings regarding the transfer of first aid functions of the city's Central Medical Unit from the city Civil Service Department to the Health Department, Dr. Accardo said that the Central Medical Unit as initally set up early this year was treating patients on return visits rather than administering only first aid.
SHOCKED BY DIRECTIVE
It was for this reason that] members of the City Board of! Health and organized medical1 societies had opposed the central medical unit, he explained "As this Central Medical Unit; was practicing early this year, it was compulsory medicine,' Dr. Accardo said. This was the opinion of the Orleans Parish Medical Society and the House of Delegates of the Louisiana State Medical Society, he said.
"About this other letter, I'm appalled about it," he continued after Shaw read from Seeder's directive. 'The Sewerage and Water Board was doing the same thing and we don't like it. I'm shocked at it."
In response to questions by Councilman James E. Fitzmorris Jr. on whether the administration should permit the parkway and Park Commission to pursue a policy at variance with that of the city administration, City Chief Administrative Officer Thomas J. Heier Fr. asserted that the commission was an independent agency.
HEIER REPLIES TO DI ROSA Council President Joseph V. ,Bi Rosa who had joined the Board of, Health in opposing the Central Medical Unit as initially conceived, told the Council that the shift of the first aid
function to the Heath Department would save some $14,000 a year.
"We'll spend that on outside treatment," Heier replied.
In response to other questions, Shaw and Dr. Accardo told the council that control of city employes sick leave will remain with the Civil Service Department in the revised set up and that the Health Department will inform the Civil Service Department in the event that it suspects abuses of workmen's compensation.
"There has never been any difference of opinion on that," Dr. Accardo said.
Heier told the council that Dr. Rodney C. Jung, city health director, is formulating a city administration procedure for processing workmen's compensation matters and that under it each private physician who treats | city employes for injuries will have to fill out standardized reports.
Shaw asked for a few minor alterations in the total appropriations of $174,270 recommended by Mayor Victor H. Schiro for the Civil Service Department for 1964. These included a salary adjustment for a nurse assigned to the medical unit which will continue to conduct the employe and pre-em-ployment examining functions for the department, a $500 appropriation for supplies for the I unit and the retention in the unit lot" a stenographer-clefk whose job is to be eliminated under budget proposals.
