The board of administrators of Charity Hospital voted Tuesday to charge patients a registration fee and a daily in-patient charge to go into effect Jan. 1, 1965.
This is the first time the hospital has ever instituted a blanket fee for patients.
People on welfare rolls and recipients of Kerr-Mills funds for the aged will not be charged, however.
Others will have to pay 50 cents for registration in the accident and admitting rooms and the clinics, and in-patients will be charged $1.00 per day. Dr. Richard W. Hughes, chairman of the board's finance committee which recommended the fees, said the charges would have the effect of screening out people "who are not really deserving of hospital care." 'ASSIST HOSPITAL' He said the money gained through the fees would "assist the hospital to provide additional and better facilities for patient care."
The money from the fees will not go directly to the hospital* however.
Under state law, all fees collected from patients at Charity go into the state mental health fund.
Hughes stated, however, that he and other board officials met with members of the subcommittee of the state legislative budget committee three weeks ago, "and it is my personal feeling that future legislation will be enacted to allow the money to stay here."
In the meantime, he said, he felt the committee would make adjustments to the hospital's budget in relation to the money contributed to the mental health fund.
Hughes emphasized that emergency patients will be taken care of whether or not they are able to pay the charge, though the fee will be expected.
OKAY WARD MIX In other action, the board approved the medical committee's action of integrating the hospital's tuberculosis ward.
Dr. Gilbert C. Tomskey, chairman of the committee, said that "inequities" exist between the Breaux bldg., used by Negroes, and the Dibert bldg., used by whites.
Consequently, the Breaux bldg. will no longer be used by Negro tuberculosis patients, who will be transferred to the Dibert bldg.
Twenty-seven Negro women were transferred Tuesday to the Dibert bldg., he said.
A hospital spokesman said the Breaux bldg. had about 70 patients before the transfer. The Dibert bldg.—with the 27: transferees—has 150 patients,its capacity.
Tomskey, who said the hospital is presently about-80 per cent integrated, said this action is "one more step towards a gradual elimination of physical segregation at the hospital."
NAME STUDY UNIT The board also appointed a committee to study the re-establishment of a dietary school at the hospital.
The hospital's dietary school lost its accreditation with the American Dietary Association when it hired a food administrator who did not have accreditation with the association. Dr. John Adriani, associate director of the hospital, said that the food administrator, Clyde Moore, has "greatly improved" the hospital's food and should be retained by the hospital. He said a dietitian with accreditation should be hired to satisfy the ADA requirements, stating that the school would result in a savings in the administration of its food program in the long run for the hospital
Dr. Walter G. Unglaub, associate dean of Tulane University Medical School, was named along with Adriani to study the matter.
