ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE
UNITED STATES SENATE
EIGHTY-FOURTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

S. J. Res. 46

A JOINT RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR AN OBJECTIVE, THOROUGH, AND
NATIONWIDE ANALYSIS AND REEVALUATION OF THE HUMAN AND ECO-
NOMIC PROBLEMS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

S. 724

A BILL TO ESTABLISH A COMMISSION ON MENTAL HEALTH, AND TO
PROVIDE FOR A STUDY OF THE PROBLEMS OF MENTAL ILLNESS AND
FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM

S. 848

A BILL TO AMEND THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ACT, AS AMENDED

S. 886 (Title VI)

A BILL TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE BY ENCOURAGING
THE EXTENSION OF VOLUNTARY PREPAYMENT HEALTH SERVICES
PLANS, FACILITATING THE FINANCING OF CONSTRUCTION OF NEEDED
HEALTH FACILITIES, ASSISTING IN INCREASING THE NUMBER OF
ADEQUATELY TRAINED NURSES AND OTHER HEALTH PERSONNEL,
IMPROVING AND EXPANDING PROGRAMS OF MENTAL HEALTH AND
PUBLIC HEALTH, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

MARCH 30 AND APRIL 13, 1955

Printed for the use of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

61997

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1955

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARIES

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[subsumed][merged small][subsumed][ocr errors][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

MENTAL HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1955

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH OF THE

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m. in the old Supreme Court chamber, United States Capitol Building, Senator Lister Hill (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Hill (chairman), Lehman, McNamara, Purtell, and Bender.

Also present: Stewart E. McClure, staff director; Roy E. James, minority staff director; William G. Reidy, and John S. Forsythe, professional staff members.

Chairman HILL. The subcommittee will come to order.

This morning the Subcommittee on Health of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare is to consider a joint resolution and three bills. They all deal with the one subject which in its cost, both in dollars and in human misery, seems to be far outstripping every other problem in the field of health. I refer to the problem of mental illness.

One of these bills is Senate Joint Resolution 46, which was sponsored initially by 30 Senators and which 2 more Senators have asked to cosponsor since the measure was introduced. Senate Joint Resolution 46 represents a rather unusual legislative device. It is a joint resolution rather than a bill. It was drafted in that form inasmuch as approximately four-fifths of its contents consists of whereases and only one-fifth of substantive legislation. That in turn is because the whereas clauses set forth, I believe, in most dramatic and alarming form, the multiplicity of most demanding reasons which force us to take prompt action to correct the situation they describe. The action they require, while not simple, can be simply stated.

Among other things, the whereas clauses in the bill point out that each and every day of the year some 750,000 individuals afflicted with mental ailments are in hospitals or mental institutions in the United States. They point out that 46 out of every 100 hospital beds in the United States is occupied by a victim of mental illness, and they point out that in addition to the heartbreak and suffering that lies behind these figures, the cost of mental illness alone to the taxpayers of the Nation is now over one billion dollars a year and is increasing at a rate of $100 million each and every year. These and other unchallenged facts set forth in the whereas clauses of Senate Joint Resolution 46 can lead but to one conclusion-that we must undertake a thoroughgoing reevaluation of everything we are doing, of everything

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »