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Page 4 THE OAK RIDGER. OAK RIOGE. TENNESS€E. THURSDAY. OCTOBER 24, 1974 Hospital expansion and rates: some fair questions ‘The dual plans for new number d new physicians. The development a t Oak Ridge local medical staff has grown Hospital are exciting. markedly only within the past The alliance between the several months. This has greatly hospital, the U. S. Atomic increased the hospital’s ability to Energy Commission and Oak think in tvms of a sizable exRidge Associated Universities in pansioa. establishing a center here for The question arises, fairly, treatment of radiation injuries whether this hospital expansion shows a healthy abihty to work will mean lower or higher together by these somewhat hnsdit.lratesfortf#locl\-Oak bodies. It also shows a realisdc federal government, especially, appreciation of the fact that if should not be t h o w t of in local nuclear power is to grow, term, the history of the hospital radiation injuries will increase, was kult with federal money by the astoundingly good record d the Atomic Energy Commissioo nuclear power plant safety to m e essentially a8 a comnotwithstanding. munity haspital. This was the The center at the hospital, to basis on w h c h citizens voted, in be known as REACTS (a theheatedhospiulreferendums questionably contrived d 1918, to turn the hospital over acronym) will not only treat b the Holston Conference of the radiation injury victims, but ad Methodist Church. train others for such treatment. There are, of course, economic It will call on the stor:..;uje ci h~iitsforthecityasOakRidge and talent developed at tix re@nal hub for medical ser- . Medical Division of ORAU, vices. Also, most assuredly the which is currently phasing out its bospital is right in thinking not small clinic for cancer therapy just in economic terms. There and research. are humanitarian considerations The much larger hospital also. If Oak Ridge can help expansion is for expanded provide health care to those who general hospital services. The have not previously.had it, then need for these new facilities that also is grounds for the reflects a trend to whlch hx pit d hosplW8 expansion. officials have called mcch at- But then a dividing lh tention, but which L h 1CCd somewhe= bebeen the hospital public may not Yet f151y ap extending and overextending hospital. It is a regional h o ~ o ~ tal. ask as swam explanation and even during the secret Liorid &e hospit&s plans to War 11 days, the local hos?:tal has served the surfounding the likclihoad thatareas both in emergencies (iti:e or lack ofon a sustaining basis. Patients from outside the city have re!atio&jp ktwccnruturc rak mountain areas where med~cal cltF.lnsion they both care is often noneustent. Oak Ridge Hospital has been a haven, setvice. and properly so. But now influ of patients Meanwhile we extend a surrounding munues, and belated collective WdComC to all epeciaIIy from the north and d the new docton who have wet, h3s bcyna new incruse. begun practice here since early Fortunately. along with the summer. It is eSPeCidY good to growing n w i i k r 01 trents, the have Dr. Mark Morris back in city t1xgely througrthc efforts the city. He is the san of Mi d the hospital administrawn) h(Jrris and the late Jack blorris, bas been able to attract a hrge one d the city’s early families. Since its initial estabiishment. in rather t e r n : H~ an - affect local hospital bills?