PATIENT
RECORDS
Patients who were hospitalized for
more than 6 weeks were transferred to the
hospital detachment of patients from their unit. We
paid these patients, usually with partial payments and this
information was recorded on a temporary service records
if we did not have his unit service record, which very often
was the case. To Needles' left you can see the right edge
of my desk; we worked closely together on many responsibilities
in this office. Keeping track of patient records which
were forwarded to the Surgeon General, Washington, D.C.
when a patient was discharged. Every day an admission sheet
was prepared by the admission office and a copy was provided
to us which we compared with our disposition sheet of the
day; this would give us the patient count for the day. Every
morning we were required to call higher headquarters, M.B.S.
in Oran, and give them the count broken down by battle casualties,
common accident injury cases, and diseases. For security
reasons we used a coded chart at both ends of the phone
line so that this data did not reach the attention of the
enemy. The registrar' office was required to have
someone of the staff attend autopsies, take notes and later
type them up which was then sent to the commanding Officer.
At times we were called upon to help clean up crash sites.
We had a B17 crash almost in our post in trees next to the
unit. We were called upon to "pick up the pieces",
body parts, etc., and identify each victim. I still
have the list of names on a sheet I prepared during this
job. There were 17 bodies including the crew. On all
seriously ill patients a letter had to be prepared and sent
to the next of kin. On all deaths a letter of condolence
was sent to the next of kin.
