Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

32

HEALTH

Having established social service on a firm basis with a paid worker at the head of
each department giving full time to her work, with a responsible committee and
treasury for each section, we decided to federate our groups under the name of "Hospital Social Service," so as to put more unity into our methods of work and to gain
more force in our appeals for public subventions. This federation took place with solemnity on May 31, I92i, at the Assistance Publique, under the presidency of its director, Dr. Louis Mourier.
Following the advice of Miss Monica Moore, field worker of the Rockefeller Commission, who had been a very encouraging and devoted friend, a committee on propaganda, under the presidency of Princess Jacques de Broglie, had also been formed.
Since that period we have worked incessantly to improve and enlarge our work.
When the American Red Cross left Paris in the summer of 1920, eight hospital social
services were working regularly under two separate organizations. At the present
date, May, I923, twenty-six hospital social services are working in Paris, all under one
organization. We have received subventions from the Ministry of Hygiene, the
Red Cross Societies, the Conseil Municipal, etc., amounting to 64,000 francs. Our
subscriptions have been 65,527 francs, and our committee on propaganda has brought
in 63,957 francs. Our budget for 1923 is 250,000 francs.
A section of surgery has just been adjoined to our hospital social service, the first
service being started under Dr. Dujarier in Boucicaut Hospital. This hospital is our
field for demonstration, as the maternity wards, the tubercular wards, and the surgery
wards each possess a social worker.
The Assistance Publique has turned over to our workers in the maternity wards,
for nearly eighteen months, the task of filling in the records for each request concerning
the assistance awarded to forsaken women, and quite recently has entrusted us with the
care of extending social service to the hospital staff suffering from tuberculosis. Within three months our workers have taken in charge one hundred and fifty-three officials
and personnel. They are examined by Dr. Rist at Laennec Hospital and relieved from
all mental and financial difficulties during their illness.
A mental hygiene dispensary for out-door patients has been attached to the Ste.
Anne Asylum, and we have been asked to organize their social service, to do the followup work in connection with their patients, and keep them in touch with the dispensary.
We have been requested also to appoint a social worker in hospitals treating venereal diseases. Social service is most needed there, as the doctors do not know what
becomes of their patients when they leave the hospital, and have no way of persuading
them to continue their treatment if interrupted. Our financial resources, however,
do not permit us, for the present at least, to answer these new demands. With the
hope of raising yearly subscriptions and following your methods of work, we have
engaged a propagandist. She has been working for only three months on special
donations. This experiment has proved sufficiently successful, so that our committee
has agreed to keep her on until the end of the year.
Having given you an outline of hospital social service in Paris since the time you
turned it over entirely to our hands, I want in a few words to tell you of the
work itself.
In the maternity hospitals the social worker sees the women at the pre-natal
consultations and gives them all the information concerning the public assistance
they are entitled to receive. She makes sure that the future mothers will come back