Government Sponsors Health Clinics To Protect Veterans' Children Here

Set up to take care of anything from croup to whooping cough, two children's health centers, sponsored by the U.S. Federal Security Administration, are currently available to the 1500 odd offsprings of veterans at the University. Located at 70 Mt. Auburn Street and at the Hygiene Department Offices in Harvardevens Village, the clinics are dispensing free examinations, immunization, treatment, and diagnosis.

McDonald Heads Project

Moppets reporting for treatment are handled by doctors selected under the auspices of the Massachusetts State Department of Health and the Children's Medical Service of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The centers, under the direction of Dr. Francis McDonald of the staff of the General Hospital, opened for business on Monday and are part of a government research project on child health administration.

Although the veterans' scions who arrive for care may not know it, they are expected to provide basic facts about called health as well as certain amount of trouble for the doctors. The only bills the papas will encounter are for the medicines needed.

The programs is being conducted for the benefit of both sick and well children as the researchers are interested in compiling complete statistics on the health and medical care needed by a group of infants and children.

The study project stands as the second of its kind in the country, since a similar one is going into its second year at the University of Washington in Seattle. Designed to case the strain en veterans' wallets, the program was set up after Cambridge doctors expressed concern over the problem of protecting the health of the concentrated GI child communities.

Butler Suggested Scheme

Dr. Allan M. Butler, professor of Pediatrics at the Medical School, suggested the Cambridge centers as a solution both to the problem of providing inexpensive medical care and of guarding against possible epidemics. With the aid of Massachusetts officials plans and contracts were developed with the U.S. Children's bureau for the operation of the clinics as a research project. University officials then provided space for the clinics.