Baby Born, Mother Dies, Father Broke, Baby Held For Payment (1934)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was doing some research for a website I’m doing about Chicago Hospitals and I came across this fom the Chicago Tribune.

It’s from August 25, 1933.

Apparently the Evangelical Hospital in Chicago was holding a baby because her father couldn’t pay the bill. Stanley Shopkus (gotta love that name huh?), lost his job five days before the kid was born. The next day his wife, the baby’s mum died and though he paid the hospital for his wife’s bill, he couldn’t pay for the kid. It took till August for Mr Shopkus to get the baby back, that’s EIGHT months!!

Click HERE for full article. Warning PDF FILE

And we thought heathcare was problematic today.

LOL

:slight_smile:

2

There was a short story based on a similar thing. A girl was born in a hospital and they wouldn’t release her until her bill was paid. The parents couldn’t afford it, so she was raised in the hospital and became a renowned (doctor, scientist, something). I think I read it in Omni. I may have asked about it in CF a while back.

3

So that warning about the hospital keeping the baby if you can’t pay the bill was true. I’d always thought it was a myth.

4

I love the part where the judge orders Shopkus not to pay the hospital a dime!

5

According to family story, when my mother-in-law was ready to go home with her firstborn, who is now my husband, the hospital refused to release the baby to her until the bill was paid. A family friend had come to pick up her and the baby, since her husband couldn’t leave work. So she didn’t even have him to back her up. She called her father-in-law, who called his lawyer, who called the hospital. In very short order the hospital administrator was inviting her into his office to wait until her baby was brought to her, and “is there anything else we can do for you?”

Father-in-law had “connections”.

6

Yeah that was cool, and don’t forget this was right in the middle of the Great Depression too.

7

These are good things to keep around when people talk about how messed up the world has become recently. Nope, it was messed up from before.

8

For Value Received, by Andrew Offutt. It was in Again, Dangerous Visions - I forget which volume.

9

Aside from being absurdly cruel, it’s also kind of stupid. I don’t know the amounts involved, but it seems to me that the cost of taking care of an infant for 8 months (or even just a few weeks or so, right?) would far outweigh the original bill.

10

It definitely did outweigh the initial bill. He owed $50 originally, and $250, by the time he got her back. I’m not sure if the hospital was taking a loss, saying they’d spent $200 on her in eight months.

I’m surprised that they were allowed to keep the baby for so long, and that the judge said that it wasn’t uncommon.

11

(Oops. Should have read the article or assumed that they would also charge him for caring for the infant.)

12

Can you imagine what the guy went through? First it’s the Great Depression, right after you lose your job, your wife gives birth, those two things are traumatic enough, then your wife DIES, and if that isn’t enough not only can’t you have your kid, but you have to pay the cost of the hospital caring for it.

As another poster said, we think healthcare is bad today, nothing like that would ever happen