The Washington Post AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1972 PAGE A18 Health Care In Mississippi Mound Bayou, Mississippi, is an all-black town of 2,200 in Bolivar County in the Delta. In Mound Bayou and the outlying area, poverty has been as intense as in any other rural area in the South or the country. Malnutrition is common, along with joblessness, poor schools and the inevitable depression of spirit. What distinguishes Mound Bayou from other Deep South small towns is its health program. Since 1966, the federal Office of Eco nomic Opportunity has provided funds for medical services that covered a four-county area that has 127,000 poor citizens out of a 200,000 population. The program has had rough spots but overall it has been run with skill and enthusiasm. More important, it has brought medical diagnosis and treatment to people who rarely or never had either before. The Mound Bayou health program is now threatened by Mississippi politics-old style. On June 1, Gov. William L. Waller vetced a $5.5 million grant from OEO for another year of operation. Political interference via the veto is an old knife in the back of successful poverty programs, and more than one wily governor has wielded it with a view to des troying an operation he didn't like. Fortunately, the law allows vetoes to be overriden by OEO. The agency has done so on several occasions, some of which required considerable courage in bucking the local establishment. At the moment, OEO offi cials are deciding whether to side with Governor Waller or with the Delta poor. That OEO is hesitat ing on what should be an automatic and quick choice suggests that an internal debate is going on within the agency and among its political overseers in the White House. This is not surprising when you recall the intrigues and deals that occurred when Gov. Ronald Reagan butted in to veto a California legal aid program two years ago. Clearly, the Mound Bayou program deserves to be financed and it deserves to be run by the black community in the area. The sick and poor are not the only beneficiaries. Over five years, some $20 million has come into the area, meaning that not only have jobs been created but that local merchants are doing more business because the workers have money to spend. Thus, in vetoing the health program, Governor Waller also put a veto on many white businessmen who are benefiting also. This last point should not have to be a major influence on OEO's decision: the case for the poor is persuasive enough. THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JULY 17, 1972 Political Dispute Perils Funds Jinvolved. He said his agency State officials have en For Mississippi Health Facility would decide during the next couraged black residents of By ROY REED Special to The New York Times MOUND BAYOU, Miss., July 15- A political dispute over $5.5-million is threatening the existence of a widely acclaimed Government health program for the poor in this all-black Delta town of 2,200 persons. The new single institution is and Health Center,, Inc. It the Delta Community Hospital operates a 51-bed hospital that was known as the lound Bayou Community Hospital and an outpatient facility that was A hospital and an outpatient established a few years ago clinic that treat a few hundred by Tufts University and was poor people every day are run-known as the Tufts Delta ning out of vital medicines bc- Health Center. cause the institutions are out of money. Their 468 employees have worked without pay for several weeks and some have joined the patients on the wel fare rolls. The black residents of nor thern Bolivar County, 90 per cent of whom are medically indigent by Government standards, are increasingly fearful that a program that has brought theim hope and better health, might soon end. 'Some Will Die' Dr. Thomas Gualtieri, the 28year-old white medical director of the Delta Community Hospital and Health Center, said: "Unless we get some help in the next week or two, we'll have to cut medical services drastically. People will not get medicine. Some will get sick. some will die. We're not dealing with staff members losing their jobs or the economic im pact on the community. We are in fact talking about deaths." There were indications yesterday that Federal officials who oversee the program will step into the dispute decisively during the next few days aiter several weeks of standing back to let state and local officials fight it out. The dispute began June 1 when Gov. William L. Waller vetoed 0 $5.5-million grant from the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity to finance for another year a program of health services that reaches from here into four Mississippi Delta counties. The Federal agency for five years has supported two institutions that provide those serv. ices. The two merged this spring at the agency's insist ence. members are Board Mostly Black The merged institution is governed by a board most of whose Delta blacks. Some leaders on the board and in the administration have been active in civil rights and other antipoverty programs and have incurred the hostility of many Mississippi whites. Governor Waller, who has been publicized in some places as a racial moderate, said he had vetoed the grant because the Mound Bayou facility had failed to meet certain state requirements in renovating its buildings, because the two merged institutions duplicated some services and because he was concerned over the legal status of the new board. It has developed since then that those reasons might have been less important than a fourth unstated one. Mr. Waller is trying to organize a new governing board to run ine Mound Bayou facilities, one that would operate under state government control and that presumably would get rid of some of the present black leaders. The Office of Economic Opsortunity has the power to verride the Governor's veto. It ,has not done so, although Federal officials and important Mississippi Republicans hint that it might soon. Dr. E. Leon Cooper, director of health affairs for O.E.O., has asked Mr. Waller to reconsider This veto. He said in a telephone:t interview yesterday that direct funding of the program through the Governor's office, as suite. officials have indicated they would prefer, would not be ac, ceptable to the O.E.O, without assurances that the people now) running the program would be few days whether override Bayou who oppose the Mr. Waller. present leaders of the health Owen H. Brooks of Green-facility to help form the new ville, chairman of the board of board. Those residents were the newly merged facility, and described derisively by one of the health facility's leaders as Richard Polk, its project direc"the Governor's colored folks." Waller's veto was still standing tor, have charged that Mr. because the Nixon Administration was courting the Democratic Governor and trying to persuade him to become a Republican to help insure Mr. Nixon's carrying Mississippi in the November election. Mr. Waller has hinted that he might support Mr. Nixon. and Republican officials spokesmen for the Governor deny the charge. One promirent Mississippi Republican who asked not to be identified) said of Mr. Waller and the 'election, "Everybody knows we don't need him." Mr. Nixon is, expected to carry Mississippi leasily unless Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama enters the race on a third party ticket. Federal and state officials an nounced a few days ago that the Office of Economic Opportunity would send a special grant of $1.3-million to the beleaguered Mound Bayou board to pay its accumulating debts and operate the present pro-, gram until the end of this month. Mr. Waller at first said: he had approved the temporary grant.. Smaller Grant Snagged But even this smaller grant is now snagged. Mr. Polk said yesterday that his office had ever received the money. And in Washington Dr. Cooper said that he had not received the Governor's letter approving the money, even though state officials had insisted as late as Wednesday that the Governor had sent it to him. Charles McKellar, Mr. Waller's press secretary, said yesterday that he did not know where the letter was or whether it had been mailed. He added that the Governor was displeased by certain unnamed) conditions that had been written into the temporary grant. " Mr. Mckeller also denied e that Mr. Waller had any intention of trying to control the Mound Bayou program. It is true that he is trying to organ¡bi ize a new board. Mr. McKellar! said, but Mr. Waller wants "the Ti black members of the com-j ifo imunity to control it ΠΕ Maian D:11. I am writing as Chairman of the Joint Council of National Pediatric Societies to comment upon the Emergency Health Personnel Amendment Act of 1972. The Joint Council comprises representatives of five ◄major national organizations interested in child health. We hope that these comments will be incorporated into the hearing records. The Joint Council strongly supports the concept of the National Health Service Corps and its expansion, not only because it should provide a mechanism to alleviate at least in part the current maldistribution of physicians, but also because it should help create an awareness of the problems of medically-deprived areas in this country on the part of those physicians who participate though they may not remain permanently in the area to which they are assigned. I might add that medical students and hous officers with whom I have had contact are quite enthusiastic about this program, in spite of the fact that they no longer feel that it will be necessary for them to serve in the military. -- even We have, in addition, comments on four specific provisions of the Act. The first of these concerns the selection process by which areas might be designated to receive these services. We agree that prior to the assignment of Corps personnel appropriate consultation should be sought with the local government, the local health department, the appropriate medical society and consumer groups. However, we believe that it should be clearly stated that the final decision must rest with the Secretary or his designee(s). We also support the provision that assignment should be made to an area regardless of the ability of residents of the area to pay for health services. We believe that to require local matching money of 25% or more might eliminate from consideration areas where the needs are greatest and, in addition, other areas might hesitate because of concern that such matching funds might not be procured. Senator Edward M. Kennedy -2 August 7, 1972 Thirdly, services of the program should be available to all those who can pay as well as those who cannot. Lastly, we should like to express our strong support for the provision that provides stipends to health science students in exchange for a commitment to serve for a period of time in the Corps. We believe that this would clearly provide an added incentive for students to enter the program. In addition, because medicallydeprived communities are usually economically-deprived communities, it might well assist in the recruitment of medical students from these areas -- which students would be the most likely to establish practice in such an area following their training. We shall follow the course of this Act with interest. Sincerely yours, Edward G. Kan m مین آسیا Edward A. Mortimer, Jr., M.D. Professor and Chairman President, Association of Medical School EAM:mm |