It is estimated that the enrollment at the Miller Junior High School will reach 1,600 pupils during the coming school year, which means that the building will also operate one-third above capacity.

Construction of the addition to the Browne Junior High School will not only complete this building but will provide an additional capacity of approximately 600 to take care of the excess number of colored junior-high-school pupils in this section of the city, who will be going both to the Browne and the Miller Junior High Schools.

Furthermore, the enrollments in the elementary schools from which promotions are made to the Browne and Miller Junior High Schools are increasing quite rapidly. Failure to provide the addition for the Browne Junior High School will make it necessary to house some junior-high-school pupils in elementary school buildings or to place them on part-time instruction, both of which the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools wish to avoid at all cost.

The Superintendent has referred already to the very difficult circumstances that we faced out there 2 years ago.

CAPACITY OF BUILDINGS

Now, I have this further information for you, sir, that the capacity of Browne Junior High School is 888. The capacity of the Miller Junior High School is 1,200, or a total joint capacity of 2,088.

There are in those two buildings today, as of June 1, 1950, 1,002 pupils at Browne, and 1,404 pupils at Miller, or a total of 2,406.

That means that there were present in the 2 schools on June 1, 1950, 318 pupils above the joint designed capacity of the 2 structures. We anticipate that in October 1950, the beginning of the next school year, there will be 2,767 pupils in those 2 buildings which have a capacity of 2,088 pupils, or an oversupply of 679 pupils, and that in October 1951 there will be approximately 3,007 pupils with an overload of 919 pupils; and in October 1952 that there will be a registration of 3,309 pupils with an overload of 1,221.

Therefore, if this particular request is not granted we shall be up against a problem of how to provide adequate schoolhouse accommodations in October 1950 for 679 pupils, in October 1951 for 919 pupils, and in October 1952 for 1,221 pupils beyond the joint capacities of these 2 buildings, and so I respectfully urge favorable action on this request.

TYPE OF CLASSROOMS TO BE ADDED

Mr. BATES. What type of classrooms will be added to the building? Dr. WILKINSON. I have not the details here before me, Mr. Chairman, but we will have an increase of 18 classrooms, each of which has a capacity of approximately 36, which will give us an increased capacity of at least 600 pupils.

Mr. BATES. But you propose to have the same type of classrooms that you now have?

Mr. HEINMILLER. Perhaps I can answer that. At the present time, Mr. Chairman, art, music, and some of the shops in Miller are in regular classrooms. We plan to give that school the standard set-up in art, music, and home economics. It is badly in need of modern home-economics laboratories. This adjustment would make two additional classrooms available in the existing building. When we transfer

the equipment in the rooms now used as music rooms to special rooms in the addition, that will provide two more classrooms. We plan to take the art-room equipment and put it in the regular art rooms in the addition, which will provide two additional classrooms in the building. We also plan to move the print shop from the present building, and put it in the addition.

I think that the net increase in the number of classrooms will be about 9 or 10, and that will provide additional capacity of about 350; but we also get additional capacity from the art rooms, the music rooms, the three new shops, and the home-economics laboratories in the addition.

The Browne was built in 1932, was it not, Dr. Wilkinson?

Dr. WILKINSON. Yes.

Mr. HEINMILLER. The music, art, and shop classes were put in regular classrooms which is not the practice any more in any of our junior high schools.

Dr. WILKINSON. Yes; and a further point ought to be in Mr. Heinmiller's testimony, which is that there is only one gymnasium there now, whereas there are over 1,000 pupils there, and a junior high school always rates two gymnasiums.

Mr. BATES. You do plan to have gymnasiums in those two buildings?

Dr. WILKINSON. That is true, sir.

Mr. BATES. How are the white schools equipped with gymnasiums? Dr. CORNING. All of them have two gymnasiums except one white junior high school which has only one, the Eliot School. I think all of the other junior high schools have two.

LIBRARIES

Mr. BATES. Are there any library arrangements in this building? Dr. WILKINSON. There will be a new library in this junior high school.

Mr. HEINMILLER. The other thing about this, Mr. Bates, is this, once Browne is completed with this addition, the facilities in it will be comparable to the Miller and the Sousa Junior High Schools, both of which were recently constructed. It will not have any facilities in excess of what those schools have with the possible exception of this home-economics suite I referred to, because with a junior high school as large as Browne, which will have an enrollment of about 1,600 or 1,700 when the addition is completed, it will require one foods laboratory and two home-making laboratories to take care of that large enrollment.

Mr. BATES. Did you ask for this in the regular budget?

Mr. HEINMILLER. We submitted it to the Commissioners with the 1951 estimates and since it was a very urgent request, we agreed to take it out of the regular budget with the understanding that it would go into a supplemental bill. We thought at that time that the hearings on 1950 supplemental requests would be earlier than they turned out to be. I am not sure, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think we made reference to the emergency situation at Browne in our testimony before the Senate subcommittee, and I think there was some reference to it during the House budget hearings, was there not, Mr. Wilding?

Mr. WILDING. Yes; very definitely there was reference to it.

Mr. HEINMILLER. I think that there was reference to it in both hearings, but we expected that we would have the hearing on this request around March.

Mr. BATES. You do not think this could be put off until 1952?

Mr. HEINMILLER. No; it would be a tragedy to do so.

Dr. CORNING. We would have trouble on our hands immediately. It is because of the high priority in which we hold this project that we are before you today.

Mr. BATES. Nobody wants to see the youth of the country taken care of any more than I do; I am just trying to do it within the means of the District.

Dr. CORNING. I understand that, sir.

Thank you very much for the courteous hearing you have given us.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT

CAPITAL OUTLAY, GALLINGER MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL

WITNESSES

DR. DANIEL L. SECKINGER, HEALTH OFFICER, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

DR. DAVID LEIBOVICI, SUPERINTENDENT, UPSHUR STREET HOSPITAL

PAUL KEEN, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, GALLINGER HOSPITAL

REHABILITATION OF UPSHUR STREET HOSPITAL

Mr. BATES. Doctor, you may proceed in your own way, sir. Dr. SECKINGER. Mr. Chairman, the request that we wish to present this afternoon is for taking care of needed repairs at our Upshur Street Hospital, the Tuberculosis Hospital for Convalescents of the District of Columbia, in the amount of $68,500.

We have occupied these premises for a number of years for the care of convalescent patients, but no structural repairs of any considerable consequence have been made during this interim.

NEED FOR REPLACEMENT OF BOILERS

We have reached the point where Mr. Archie Hutson, the Director of Construction, tells us that something must be done with the boilers at that institution, or sooner or later we will get ourselves into serious difficulty.

Mr. KEEN. Before the next heating season.

Dr. SECKINGER. Yes; it should be done before the next heating season, because he cannot guarantee that they will be of service that long. While he says that he does not know of anything that is dangerous in connection with the operation of these boilers, he cannot insure their safety. They are right under the wards, with the second and third floors above them, so I am concerned for their structural safety.

PURPOSE OF HOSPITAL

Mr. BATES. What is the purpose of this hospital?

Dr. SECKINGER. This hospital is for the purpose of taking care of tuberculosis patients from both Gallinger and Glenn Dale that have recuperated to such an extent that they may be ambulant, to a certain extent, where, otherwise, at Glenn Dale and Gallinger they would be mixed up with the regular run of bed patients.

Administratively, it is a good thing to separate the people who are critically ill from those who are up and around, and so, as soon as we can get them from either Gallinger or Glenn Dale when they have recuperated to the extent that they can be considered as convalescent, we do so.

Mr. BATES. You do not have any arrangement at Gallinger or Glenn Dale, where you could do this work?

Dr. SECKINGER. No, sir; we do not.

Mr. BATES. You do not?

Dr. SECKINGER. No. This, at Upshur, is an excellent arrangement. because it brings convalescent patients together and it greatly aids getting them back into reemployment.

NUMBER OF PATIENTS

Mr. BATES. How many patients do you have out there?

Dr. SECKINGER. Dr. Leibovici.

Dr. LEIBOVICI. We have 125 beds, and we had 82 patients as of this morning.

Mr. BATES. How many doctors do you have?

Dr. LEIBOVICI. Just one.

Mr. BATES. How many nurses do you have?

Dr. LEIBOVICI. We have six nurses.

Dr. SECKINGER. Now, Dr. Leibovici has given a great deal of time and thought to the care of convalescents. He has a very interesting story to tell in connection with them. We know that if we discharge patients from tuberculosis hospitals without this process of curing and hardening to go back into normal every-day life that about 42 percent of them will come down with infections later on; in other words, that they have a recrudescence of their infection, whereas after Dr. Leibovici is through with them, I believe you have only about 25 percent? Dr. LEIBOVICI. Twenty-three to twenty-five percent counting everything.

Dr. SECKINGER. I would like, if you will permit it, Mr. Chairman, to ask Dr. Leibovici to just tell you what he does with them. Mr. BATES. Yes.

Dr. LEIBOVICI. The Upshur Street Hospital is chiefly a rehabilitation center where patients from Glenn Dale and Gallinger, after their disease is quiescent and they are no longer bed patients, but still in hospitals, are transferred to this hospital, where a program of graduated exercises under close supervision is started for the purpose of seeing how much exercise they can tolerate and for the purpose of building up their tolerance for work. At the same time, besides giving them exercise, plans are made for their future life in the community, vocational training, or help in part-time employment or social welfare service is given, and the strictly medical care is continued in the same way that it had been started at Glenn Dale or Gallinger.

Studies made several years ago, and even more recent studies, show that with tuberculosis it is not enough to treat the patient for tuberculosis. The patients have a tendency to relapse, and we must consolidate treatment by making as certain as we can that there will not be a relapse. Studies made in big cities like Philadelphia and New York show that between 40 and 50 percent of the patients discharged from the hospitals, and these are medical discharges, not against advice, that between 40 and 50 percent of the patients, depending on the nature of the study, relapse within 2 years and are back again for further treatment.

I feel in such cases that the treatment was not as complete as it could have been, and, certainly, it becomes financially expensive.

In the Upshur Street Hospital in connection with the program of rehabilitation, hardening, training and assistance, follow-up studies have been continued ever since 1945 and today we find that of the patients discharged medically from the Upshur Street Hospital, the total deaths and relapses at a maximum figure is 25 percent, roughly, or, to put it another way, it means that 75 percent of the patients discharged are alive, well, and productively working, and that the patients who are spared a recurrence of the disease and the necessity for much longer hospitalization do much better that way.

DISCUSSION OF CONTINUANCE OF HOSPITAL IN OPERATION

Mr. FOWLER. The site is the site of the old tuberculosis hospital. In 1942 it was renovated and opened for these convalescent tuberculosis patients and undoubtedly has rendered a very good service.

We have often thought, however, that it is not a very good thing to have an adjunct to Gallinger Hospital so far away. The separation of facilities of that sort undoubtedly tends toward added expenses.

We did receive from Dr. Seckinger a recommendation a short time ago that was concurred in by Dr. Stebbing and I think by Dr. Finucane that this facility be closed. As to that recommendation we concurred, and forwarded it to the Commissioners.

Thereafter, I think the Health Officer withdrew that recommendation and indicated that he had changed his opinion about closing of the facility. I presume that you saw that in the paper.

Thereafter, the Commissioners went along with the Health Officer and approved this budget estimate. Just why the recommendation was changed or withdrawn I do not know.

Dr. SECKINGER. Mr. Chairman, may I comment as to that, because I think it is important.

It is not that we ever felt that the institution was not doing a splendid piece of work, but we had the problem that the budget was already going through and we were afraid we could not get the necessary corrections, as you have fortunately given us an opportunity to speak about them today.

We did have a serious matter there, and we did not want to keep the patients there under duress, where there was a structural danger. In some way the matter was not exactly explained correctly. We never have felt that we wanted to do away with the rehabilitation program. We had hoped that eventually, when Glenn Dale's building program was completed, we might absorb this facility at Glenn Dale. But as we can see it now, it would be at least five years before we can get anything done at Glenn Dale in the way of building.