12
Thursday, November 2. 1972
University Daily Kansan
/
191
Low Birth Rate Prompts Changes
Editor's note: This is the first article in a two-part series concerning the effects of a lower United States birth rate on Lawrence and Kansas City area community agencies that provide care and aid for babies and their mothers.
By MARGE LEVIT Kansan Staff Writer
Some startling figures showed up on the population charts this fall, and when they were all put together they didn't spell out what was a record low in the U.S. birth rate.
Our national rate dropped to a low of 2.1 children for each woman of child-bearing age, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. What's more, the National Center for Health Statistics said that actual births during the first half of 1972 were down a cent from last year, even though there are 3 per cent more women of child-bearing age.
According to the statisticians, if the 2.1 level continues and other variables fall into another region, the population in United States will reach a zero population growth in 70 years. One reason it will take so long is that there are now so many more young than elderly persons in the United States.
This news is no news at all to a number of agencies in the Kansas area that are involved with the investigation.
simply official confirmation of a trend they have seen developing for several years.
HOSPITALS WERE among the first to notice the birth dearth. Within the past two years, three hospitals in the Kansas City area closed their maternity sections. They are: St. Margaret's Hospital, in Kansas City, Mo.; Memorial Hospitals, in Kansas City, Mo.
"Maternity departments have always been a losing proposition, financially, for hospitals," said Dell Nyland, executive vice president of the Kansas City Area Hospital Assn., which represents 34 hospitals. "Most services in hospitals are priced according to maternity department size, than that of maternity departments. There would be too much public indication."
So hospitals have been bearing the cost, or counting on a heavy load which them to at least break even. Maternity departments are also subject to "wilder gyrations" in occupancy rate than other departments in hospitals, he said.
NYLAND RECALLED that when he was director of a hospital in Ogden, Utah, "We were told the maternity section was empty and costs were rising. We found that there were more births when the weather was stormy than not nice. That's not just an old wives' tale."
Even with stormy weather giving them an occasional boost, hospitals have found themselves in a bind. It costs them more to deliver babies these days.
One important reason, often taken for granted by maternity patients, is the high level and quality of care offered today. Maternal health department departments are expected to provide such scientific advances as fetal monitoring equipment, methods of testing for possible HI complications or mental retardation cases, and care units which help save "blue babies."
It has been suggested that instead of such facilities being duplicated in a number of hospitals, economies could be effected by establishing a single, specialized "Lying-In" hospital with a separate whole area. Some other cities already have them. This is a possibility being studied there Nyland said, but it is viewed with mixed feelings by some professionals who believe that a hospital should endeavor to complete ancillary (supportive) services.
KANNS CITY AREA hospitals have joined in one cost of cost-cutting program. Many of them now use a single laundry, share data-processing equipment, participate in job training and cooperate in training nursing assistants and support a disaster radio network.
Med Center Adds Letters ToCollection
BY JOHN FARLEY
Kansan Staff Writer
The Florence Nightingale Collection of letters at the University of Kansas Medical Center has been expanded to 18, following a purchase of four additional letters this month.
The four newly acquired letters were purchased from a manuscript dealer in Boston.
Nightingale was an administrator at one time in an English hospital and is known as one of the world's most prolific letter-writers.
Many believe that the Nightingale correspondence is likely to prove to be the most extensive collection of letters ever written by one person.
A BOOK issued in 1962 by the Medical Center in association with the departments of History of Medicine and Nursing Education describes Nightingale as a "schoolmaster." She became interested in a problem, she would offer sensible advice, the book reported.
Nightingale, while serving as a nurse during the Crimean War, contracted Crimean fever and was an invalid the rest of her life. She was still active, however, and the Nightingale Home for Nurses Training at St. Thomas Hospital in London.
The Nightingale system of nursing was set up in both the United States and England and is responsible for modern professional and public-health nursing.
THE LETTERS that even when Nightingale was past 70 she was still interested in and involved with all manner of objects, and above all, people. Hudson said.
The Clendening Medical Library at the Medical Center, where the letters are kept, "is the largest Florence Nightingale collection in the central states area." Robert Hudson, chairman of the History of Medicine department, said recently.
The price of the letters, Hudson said,
ranged between $10 and $300.
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On the local Lawrence scene, Lawrence Memorial Hospital doesn't have all the options that its big-city cousins do. For one reason, it's the hospital in town and it has to act like it.
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"We can't close our maternity section, said Charles Deniston, the hospital's administrator. "It's the only one in the area. But I'm sure that when we end up allocating costs each year, we lose money on the maternity unit."
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WINSTON B. HARWOOD
Even though the hospital is located in a University community where young people comprise a large percentage of the population, its maternity dep't ment occupancy rate was running about 50 per cent of capacity for the first eight months of this year (the same is said). The hospital's budget is based on an overall occupancy rate of 64 per cent.
Born and raised in Lawrence. Attended Law-
rence schools and University of Kansas. Married, two college age children, two junior high age.
Republican Candidate for the 44th Legislative District
Served 41/2 years in the army during World War II. Have owned and operated my own business for the last 25 years(Harwood's Wholesale Meals).
I have lived and worked in the 44th District all my adult life. I believe that I am aware of the problems of a university town as well as the problems of a university located in the heart of a city. I believe that I can fairly represent both segments.
I favor adequate funding of education at all levels.
WINSTON B. HARWOOD
In 1970, there were 899 babies born at Lawrence Memorial. In 1971, the figure was down to 821. The 1972 figure is expected to be 736. That number was just 475 births for the first eight months.
"We have three separate nurseries. $n_{ni}$ we're only using two of them," he said. "We also have 22 maternal beds. We can use them for certain other gynecological cases, but we are limited by state health laws to using them only for sale or non-infectious cases."
Tomorrow, the second article will discuss the reasons for the lower overall birth rate and effects that an increasingly higher birth rate have on community agencies.
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