Hospital – Ponce PR

Description

Grants from the Federal Government helped build healthcare facilities across the island. “The outstanding achievement in the field of public-health this year was the extension, after twelve years of endeavor, of health services to every municipality in the Island. Twenty-four new buildings, made possible by grants from the Federal Government, have been completed and occupied by health units in twenty-three municipalities. These buildings have not only improved conditions under which the work is done but will mean a substantial saving in rentals, which may now he used for further expansion of the service. Four District General Hospitals, with a capacity of three hundred beds each, made possible by Charity Hospitals Act No. 29 of 1935, and the grant of $431,500 by the Federal Government, are under construction. Plans for their equipment and operation have been prepared and it is expected that they will be in use next year. The· opening of these hospitals should greatly improve the medical service· now available to the low income group which comprises the largest part of the population.”¹

“The PRRA forged alliances with local doctors who were already working to ameliorate the effects of these diseases, but lacked the necessary capital, equipment, infrastructure, or staff to adequately do so. While the 1928 and 1932 hurricanes brought local anti-hookworm “operations to a standstill” by destroying 50% ofthe sanitary latrines previously built to fight the spread of hookworm, Puerto Rican doctors such as Eduardo Garrido Morales and José Rodriguez Pastor led the campaign against tuberculosis and advised the PRRA on its construction of major tuberculosis hospitals in Ponce, Guayama, Mayagüez and Cayey as well as four new district hospitals at Bayamón, Fajardo, Arecibo and Aguadilla.”²