LOCAL Houston | The City Guide December 2017 | Page 52

FOOD | ARTS | COMMUNITY | STYLE+LEISURE
THE STORY OF HOUSTON
THE HOSPITAL
By J. R. Gonzales
Images courtesy of Houston History Alliance
Jefferson Davis Hospital
and nurse's home
Jan de Hartog, University of Houston, 1962
Reprinted from the Texas State Historical
Association’s Handbook of Houston, a
project in cooperation with the Houston
History Alliance. For more information,
visit www.HoustonHistoryAlliance.org.
Jefferson Davis Hospital, 1962.
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L O C A L | 12 . 2017
Written by Dutch-born playwright and author JAN DE HARTOG and published
in 1964, The Hospital exposed the horrible conditions at Jefferson Davis Hospital
in Houston’s Fourth Ward. In 1962, de Hartog and his wife Marjorie settled in
Houston. Shortly after their arrival, the de Hartogs learned from acquaintances
that help was needed to feed the newborns at Jefferson Davis Hospital. Because
of a staffing shortage, hours would sometimes go by before the babies were fed.

The de Hartogs, who were Quakers, volunteered at the hospital. Jan de Hartog
worked as an orderly in the emergency room. What he saw stunned him. Eight
months into their work, de Hartog exposed what he called a “monument of
misery” at the hospital in a letter published on April 21, 1963, in the Houston
Chronicle. He described a facility where “the floors are slippery with blood and
vomit” and malfunctioning beds were “propped up with chairs under the mat-
tresses and held together with surgical tape.” De Hartog felt compelled to write
the letter about the hospital’s conditions after Houston city councilman Frank
Mann suggested a cut in the hospital’s budget.

Houstonians both commended and criticized de Hartog for making his findings
public. Those siding with him contrasted elected leaders’ treatment of the hos-
pital system with their support for the Astrodome. Former Chronicle editor M. E.
Walter challenged de Hartog’s assessment of conditions at Jefferson Davis and
noted its “splendid record over the country for curing the sick….”

De Hartog followed up on his letter by challenging Harris County residents to
contribute funding to augment nursing services at the new city/county-run hospi-
tal Ben Taub General Hospital, and he pledged $10,000 of his own money.
Though the move fell short of its $60,000 goal, residents, aided by the de
Hartogs and their fellow Quaker friends, mobilized to provide volunteer services
at Ben Taub as trained orderlies and nurses’ aides.

De Hartog’s experiences at both hospitals garnered national attention after he
published The Hospital in October 1964. In the book, de Hartog described in
greater detail the conditions at Jefferson Davis, including a patient who died of
suffocation because a tracheotomy tube was not cleaned in a timely manner,
the result of staffing shortages. De Hartog also wrote of a nurse removing a
cockroach from a child’s tracheotomy tube.

Proceeds from the book went to the nurses’ aide training program. The book
helped renew calls for the Harris County Commissioners to order an election
to create a hospital district. In early 1965, voters had their say on the matter,
but the measure was defeated. Disappointed, de Hartog again asked residents
to volunteer their time at the hospitals. On November 20, 1965, county resi-
dents finally approved the creation of a hospital district to oversee operations
of Jefferson Davis and Ben Taub hospitals, the fifth time the measure had gone
to voters.
Jefferson Davis Hospital in February 1963
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