Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/261
in a very simple frame structure. At the time of the visit from the survey staff several window panes were broken out and the openings had been covered with paper or cloth. All water had to be carried in from a distance, as the shallow well on the place was contaminated. A new doctor had just been transferred to this station and found his quarters in this condition.
The allowance for transporting household goods is so limited that the average employee transferred from one agency to another cannot afford to possess furniture or the other household equipment so necessary to contentment and satisfaction. The equipment supplied is often of poor quality and in a bad state of repair.
The duties of resident physicians as outlined by the Service in formal statements may be summarized as follows: The care of medical work in their jurisdiction and administrative direction of hospitals and sanatoria, and direction of all nurses and other medical and hospital employees.
Physicians on reservations often confine their medical activities mainly to the dispensing of drugs. They depend primarily upon the Indians to seek their advice rather than themselves seeking the cases in need of attention. Lack of training and appreciation of public health methods is evidenced by the lack of adequate records. Although the Indian office called for reports they were not generally made fully and accurately. The various forms supplied in the past have not been well designed to bring out necessary information, and they have not been really used in analyzing the data, so that it has been a simple matter to slight report making. Not until the appointment of the present district medical directors was there anyone to take a real interest in such data and to assist and encourage the agency physician to keep the necessary records.
Without accurate statistical information a constructive program cannot be formulated and consequently there has rarely been a definite plan of work. The work has been to take care of the next case, and sometimes apparently the object is to do it with the least time and effort. On all reservations visited Indians were observed coming to the doctor’s office and asking for medicine either for themselves or for friends or members of their families. The Indian, almost without exception, is given the particular drug he requests or a substitute of some sort without being asked more details about the malady present. Physical examinations are almost never made