Mobilization of health resources for defense.

Abstract

This discussion of some of the problems involved in mobilization of the health resources of the country for defense will be limited to a few of the many health personnel and health supply problems with which the Health Resources Office of the National Security Resources Board is concerned. The difficulties experienced in World War II with respect to the withdrawal of professional personnel from certain communities, without due consideration for the health and welfare of those communities as they affected the national interest and safety, set the stage, as it were, for the approach that should be made in the future. The critical shortages of certain medical supplies similarly conditioned us for better planning in the medical supply field. The onset of the Korean difficulties and the subsequent enactment of Public Law 779, an amendment to the Selective Service Act, not only re-emphasized the need for mobilization planning in the health field, but materially pointed up the problems that had to be solved at an early date. In a sense, long-range study and planning had to be combined with some short-range decision and action. In the long-range planning program, the Health Resources Office of the National Security Resources Board considered problems to be faced in planning for civil defense and in this area of activity compiled the material for the manual “Health Services and Special Weapons Defense,” now the functional guide in the health field for the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Early in 1950, national inventories of physicians and veterinarians were completed by their respective professional organizations. The National Security Resources Board also sponsored and supported a national roster of sanitary engineers, and a national roster of nurses, and recommended support from the National Scientific Register project to aid in the development of a more complete roster of dentists. During the past year a pilot study of health manpower requirements during a national emergency was started in Pittsburgh, Penna. This project, sponsored and supported by the Resources Board, is under the supervision of the U. S. Public Health Service and is being carried out by the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, with the co-operation of the state and local medical societies and other professional organizations. Surveys of the physicians in the Pittsburgh area are being made to determine the type of practice and the estimated maximum number of patients that could be taken care of by these physicians during a national emergency. Similar information is being obtained by questionnaire from the hospitals in the same area. In addition, by surveys of the consumers of medical care in the area, information is being obtained as to where people go for their medical services and the proportion of the population at varying distances from the center that seeks care in the center. This latter information is being obtained by a house-to-house survey.