Dr. John L. S. Holloman's Statement

    Statement by Dr. John L. S. Holloman, Jr., M. D. 
President, Medical Committee for Human Rights and 

President Eleet, National Medical Association 
Thursday, December 16, 1965 
10 AM, Executive Room, Hay-Adams House, Washington, D. C. 

‘The Negro American, in comparison with his white fellow 

citizen, has more diseases and disabilities; one-third more days 
ere. 

when he is unable to function at full physical capacity; is sick 

enough fe oerequice bed rest on twice as many days; loses one and one- 

third times more days from work due to disease and disability; has 

a higher mortality rate, including a 90 per cent differential in 

infant MeeEal ity and seven years shorter life expectancy. 

To summarize: of every 1,000 white Americans in their late 

forties, five will die in the coming year. If they are Negro, ten 

3 crisis in health is accentuated in the deep Southi 

The 1946 Hill-Burton Act entrenched a rigid pattern of 

segregation in the eleven states of the Old Confederacy.* This 

rigid wall persists despite the clear intent of Title VI of, the 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, 

The fact is that, throughout the South, most of the 2,000 

hospitals and other health facilities discriminate against Negroes. 

There are hospitals which admit no Negro patients, many more which 

bar Negro physicians from treating hospitalized patients, and 

numerous nursing schools which admit no Negroes, to training.» 

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* Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi 

North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia 

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‘John L, S. Holloman, Jr., M, Dy 

Segregation of Negro patients is widespread, frequently in an 

old facility after a new building has been erected. Sometimes, when 

there is an overflow of white patients, Negro beds are moved into 

the halls. 

It is within this sobering framework that we, as physicians 

and healers, met with Mr, John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, 

Education and Welfare, yesterday afternoon. 

Qur specific concern focused on three key areas: 

1, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requires that HEW cut off 

Federal assistance to any institution found guilty of discrimination. 

Hundreds of complaints have been filed. The complaints of the 

three organizations represented here today have run the gamut from 

segregated, separate and/or unequal rooms, cafeterias, treatment 

facilities, maternity wards and on to discourteous treatment of 

Negro patients. 

We stressed our belief that HEW has ineffectual machinery for 

enforcement of Title VI with regard to hospital and medical 

facilities; that HEW has inadequate investigatory personnel; and, 

inadequate procedures for processing complaints. 

We took sad 

Rights Act... and 

facilities across 

abuse, it appears 
kee 

refused 

received payments 

notice that 17 months after passage of the Civil 

after scores of complaints against medical 

the entire South...and glaring abuse after glaring 

that only four hospitals in Mississippi, which 

‘to sign compliance forms with the Department have not © 

because of Title VI. 



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Statement by Dr. John L. S, Holloman, Jruy M. D. 

These delays have persisted despite the obvious health 

disadvantages faced by Negro citizens. 

2. We expressed our aie pornanice over reports that HEW plans 

to bypass Title VI with respect to payment of individual doctors 

under Part B of the Health Insurance Law. 

Under this program, the Southern white physician who treats 

a Negro patient, who is a recipient of Medicare funds, was last 

month offered the consoling advice of the American Medical 

Association--through its House of Delegates, that he does not have 

to desegregate his private treatment facilities--since Medicare 

money is going to the individual patient. 

Presently, under the Medicare Bill, there is no mention of 

the fact that hospitals in receipt of Medicare funds covering the 

hospitalization of patients must provide service on a non- 

discriminatory basis. 

We told Mr. Gardner that it will not be possible to implement 

the full scope of the health insurance and welfare medical 

assistance provisions, unless a bold and deliberate effort is made 

to bring all disadvantaged people, and particularly southern Negroes, 

into the mainstream of American medicine and health care. 

Therefore, we stressed that it is particularly important 

that the Federal funds to be spent under the Medicare Act should be 

spent in a non-discriminatory way; and, in no case should they be 

used to support segregated facilities. 



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Statement by Dr. John L. S. Holloman, Jr., M, D. 

In particular, we pointed out again that a far more vigorous 

effort, than has appeared so far, will be necessary to desegregate 

hospitals and institutions that are receiving Federal money and 

we are not to be content with scant compliance depts! Members 

and workers of the National Medical Association and the Medical 

Committee for Human Rights in the South indicate that this is a 

dangerously wide-spread pattern. 

3. Thirdly, we made specific inquiry as to the disposition 

of more than 300 complaints of hospital discrimination, filed with 

HEW by the Legal Defense Fund, MCHR, the NAACP, NMA and other 

individuals.