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

Chronological by date of meeting.

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.

B1072Series B1072, Transcripts of Public Hearings on Medical Services Regulatory Policies, originally included this series.

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.

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

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of thi material.