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Announcing The New National Patients Committee

Creator: Fred Botts (author)
Date: July 1931
Publication: The Polio Chronicle
Source: Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation Archives


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REPORTED By FRED BOTTS
"The Dean" of Warm Springs

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WITH the slogan "Every Patient a Polio Crusader," a committee composed of those who have either received or are receiving treatment at the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation has been formed as of June 1st, 1931.

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The affairs of this Committee are to be planned and managed by those patients who are actually at the Foundation. There will be a President, a Treasurer, a Secretary and several chairmen of sub-committees.

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The aim and purpose of this National Committee is to prepare, collect and disseminate among all patients, valuable information which will make it possible for these patients to actively carry on in their own communities a campaign of education for the benefit of those recently afflicted with poliomyelitis.

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The formation of this committee fulfills a long felt need in providing an outlet for the enthusiasm of those who have received treatment at the Foundation and who feel that they should help to carry on its work. Letters and visits received from these people over the past five years are all of the same tenor - "What can I do to help the cause?"

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They can do much of incalculable good. First, they can visit men, women and children at home who have been stricken with polio, tell them and their doctors about their own experience, point out to each one that the world for them has not come to an end -- that with immediate and proper treatment there is hope for at least a partial rehabilitation. They can tell about the availability of serum for use in the acute stage before the paralysis has set in and where it can be obtained. They can offer to put the doctor and the family of the person afflicted in immediate communication with the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, the Medical Staff of which will, without cost or obligation, render immediate advice.

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If, in their communities, infantile paralysis exists in epidemic form, they can offer the same service to the local health authorities.

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They can also be of invaluable assistance in raising funds to make it possible for those without means to secure expert medical supervision and after treatment at some recognized institution. The members of the National Patients' Committee can also build up the Patients' Aid Fund by contributing annually themselves even in small amounts and by securing contributions from their friends and fellow citizens. Every patient -- past and present -- has been elected a member of this committee. The plans of the executive committee are to forward very shortly a complete program to each member together with material which each member can put to immediate use. In the meantime "The Dean" is looking for an immediate expression of co-operation and enthusiastic endorsement.

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He expects his mail to be very heavy.

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Recently a meeting of a group of active patients was held at the Foundation and the new committee idea was given a splendid send off.

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All those now at the Foundation will meet in the next several days for the purpose of electing officers and transacting new business.

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All reports of work and contributions are being cleared through the National Committee's own executives.

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