Policy and poverty. Child and community health in Philadelphia, 1900 to 1930
J. P. Brosco
Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami School of Medicine, (Fla), USA.
On a fall day in 1913, a man sat on a crowded wooden bench with a little
boy on his lap. He waited all day, only to be told that the physician who
would treat his son was not working in the public clinic that day. The next
morning he learned that if he returned at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he
would stand a better chance of seeing the physician. Since the family home
was a shack and even food was scarce, he could ill afford the loss of
another day's pay. His son had infantile paralysis, though, and the father
believed that the physician could help, so he kept trying. The boy died
during the Christmas holidays. "Is it simply that there are not enough
public clinics, enough doctors willing to help care for the people who come
to them?" asked the social worker who told this story. "Or is there
something wrong with the system?"
