Good point about experience with exotics. I helped a friend from Japan who was a leper get treated for a foot ulcer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and they made him worse instead of better. He had to go back to Japan to be treated effectively. And it took him seven years to pay Brigham & Women’s bill (he was a Japanese national, the son of the White Russian woman who was the first female kabuki dancer in Japan).
Another duty of the Marine Hospital OD that I recall from my 2 yr hitch there as a Gnl. M.O. was “Quaratine Calls.” US Seaports of Entry (where you can clear in) all, theoretically at least, had a designated “Quarantine Officer”. In most that fell to the USPHS, though I believe ports w/o a PHS presence might use a civil MD (local county health officer, etc,) under contract.
Once upon a time, when things like cholera, typhus and tb could be, and were imported, ports had actual isolation “quarantine stations.” Galveston had one but it was long closed by the ‘60s. But masters still had rules and conventions to follow, as you MM officers know better than I do. When “requesting pratique” as they used to say, they had certain things that had to be reported.
If infectious disease was suspected onboard, that got reported, via the CG, to the Marine Hospital. The duty of responding fell to the OD (a 24 hr rotation). Depending on the nature & circumstances of the report, it most often was handled by the OD boarding first at the dock. But a few times, I recalll getting treated to a helo or small boat ride out to an anchored or offshore vessel. Never found much beyond flu, chicken pox, mumps, etc. , but I did get the treat of having to negotiate one of those damn swinging rope ladders with the wooden steps a few times! In my PHS whites too! Weren’t all white when I got back! ;-)).
I’m sure that whole thing gets ignored 99.9% with arrivals now, but I wonder who would handle it if they did have something really serious and contagious aboard a ship nowadays?
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Unfortunately since 911 most foreign crew are confinded to the port now. Not much for them to do anyway, today ports are usually far from the city center, red light districts have been replaced with call girls who don’t have twic cards and most today sailor bars don’t welcome sailors.
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Being confined to port is not at all that bad as compared to being confined to a ship as is the case in Hawaii. Fellow seaman on American flagged ships. It indeed looks like modern slavery and that in the land of the free. I really hope they are proud of themselves. Man oh man…
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USPH hospital in Staten Is NY I spent a week there in 1980 for a broken cheekbone that they said needed surgery and wound up contracting mononucleosis. Felt worse everyday. Checked myself out and my family dr. treated the mono and said no surgery need for the cheekbone. They had cute nurses though.
Thank you WillyJP for sharing your memories of the USPHS Galveston Marine Hospital. I am a US Merchant Seaman living in the Houston Galveston area. I did not start sailing until the late 1990’s so I fully missed the Merchant Marine/PHS experience but I thoroughly enjoy reading the post on this thread .I have taken a little time off to finish a college degree at Texas A&M in Galveston in the Maritime Studies Program. Last semester as part of a research project my professor assigned me the task of doing some background research on the Galveston Marine Hospital so your post really give insight on how these facilities operated. Anyway. As most of the people on this thread know USPHS closed all or most of their PHS/Marine Hospitals by the mid 1980’s. In the case of the Galveston Marine Hospital it was transferred to Galveston County and used as a clinic by the Galveston County Health District for a few years until it was turned over to a private developer who converted the structure into apartments. The main historic hospital building and many of the auxiliary structures are still there . Thanks Again
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Thanks for letting me know that! I have heard that the Chief of Surgery during my tour there, who was a career PHS guy and a very fine surgeon, is still alive and living in Galveston. At his likely age, that could of course change any time, but if you want any more insight into the history of the place, send me your private email address and I’ll tell you what I know about him so you might interview him if that would be of interest (……or is THIS email method private? Let me know if it is and I’ll reply) or if that would be helpful to your research.
Cadets at A&M Maritime were also seen and treated at our Outpatient Clinic as I recall……maybe because they had Z cards? I know we did the required qualifying physical exams for LOTS of MM officers. As I recall the process of getting my Merchant Marine Staff Officer’s License as a Surgeon, I had to get a potential employer to write me a letter of recommendation. It seems to me that, having many times gone out of my way to give Lykes Lines officers a fast turnaround when in port, the Senior Captain of Lykes was happy to provide me with that!
Thanks for your interest!
WJP
This EHT67 responding to gCaptain Mariner Form " Marine Hospital" thread email respondent WillyJP. Yes I am very interested in contacting you viva direct email regarding your experience with the Galveston Marine Hospital , you can reach me at :
Ed Thompson
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Back in '77, working out of Seward, Ak, the hospital system was some kind of conglomerate of local, state and Public Health system. One doctor was a medic in Vietnam and fulfilled his medical school obligation by working in the public health system. His wife was a nurse there and was from Conroe Tx. Every 3 week crew change, her mother would meet our crews at Houston Intercon airport with a load of stuff for the crew to tote up to Alaska. In return, we got concierge medical service.
I’m not sure how medical bills were charged as we had good insurance and I had no issues that year. The crew had the normal scrapes , cuts, clap and bruises. One cook fell off the gangway and clung to a piling on the RR dock. The barnacles cut his legs, stomach and tallywacker pretty bad. The doc said hypothermia saved him from bleeding to death. For some reason, the cook decided to end his seagoing career.
One captain almost took out the RR dock as his vision was coming and going. I drove the capt to the hospital and we saw the doctor in the hall. We explained what happened. He said, “Capt Ben, I don’t even have to stick my finger up your ass to tell you that you’re a diabetic but go over there and get your blood work”. Had a full diagnosis in less than 3 hours.
Not so simple today!
My experience with the US Medical Service Is rather bizar, Every time we arrived at an US port we had to undergo the rather humiliating dick inspection. The entire crew, only the officers were exempted for some reason. Obviously they were thought to be above getting a social disease as this is called these days. Funny reasoning.
Once we were at a regular run between Mena al Ahmadi and Philadephia and that six times. Nice. We had to anchor for the dick parade in the Delaware river each time. Sometimes the doctor was an hour late, so this was an expensive ritual. We had a keen first officer who said to the captain: ‘Let me handle it, you keep out of the way so that your hands are clean’.
He had a friendly talk with the doctor, asked about how to speed up the procedure and at some moment asked him whether he liked whiskey. Yes, that was the case. Well, the end of the story was that we had no inspection and a carton box with five bottles of whiskey were lowered into the inspection vessel.
The next and following times the same doctor came on board while we were going slow and demanded to be led to the liquor store were he took, he was rather choosy, his pick of bottles of whiskey. No more anchoring, it was all executed on the fly. Everybody happy, no more stupid costly delays and for us a duty free bargain.
. . . . on the fly. . . .
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Oops, did not see that one coming…
You guys fell for the ol’ dick inspection scam eh? After the authorities caught up with that guy he had to move on to a rest stop on the Delaware Turnpike. Later he had something to do with the invention of the dick-pic and ran for Congress.
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I suppose that there are easier and cheaper ways to scam five bottles of whiskey. To begin with you need a crewed motor launch which burns a considerable amount of fuel, No, better rob a liquor store…
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November 26, 1964 - November 29, 1964 I was a patient at the Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, Marine Hospital. I was an Oiler aboard the SS George M. Humphrey of the National Steel Corporation operated by the M.A. Hanna Company of Cleveland, Ohio.
In heavy weather on Lake Superior a 35-gallon drum of boiler chemicals came loose from its moorings and split raining the chemical down on me. My watch engineer 2 A/E Jim McKillip hauled me to the engine room shower. Jim cut my boiler suit off of me and sent someone to the galley to get some egg whites that Jim used to flush my eyes. Then Jim bandaged my eyes and I got off at the Soo the next day. While leading me by the hand a deck officer told me to be careful to not slip on the ice - uh huh.
Hospital personnel told me Jim had done every thing right and my eyes were okay. They treated me for some skin rashes caused by the chemical.
The whiskey was just a bonus. Did he take any pictures? It’s possible you had a starring role in the slide show shown to all plebes at the academy prior to their first sea year assignment as cadets. The “lecture” was delivered by one of the USPHS doctors assigned to the on site hospital - Patten Hospital. Named after Mary Patten . They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. By the way there’s a ship name for you - Neptune’s Car.
Anyway the lecture was a horror show of deformed private parts and explicit warnings. You can guess how effective it might have been.
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They don’t make ‘em like that anymore
Yes, she was quite a character and a genuine tough cookie!
Lucky me, as an officer I could not have made my appearance in the slideshow.
In the last year at the nautical school we got a number of lessons from a doctor with a same kind of slideshow. The main idea was to encourage us to use proper preventive measures. I remember that at the end of one of his lessons, after the slideshow, he ended with saying: ‘Seamen stick their dicks into something where I would not even dare to stick my umbrella in’. At the same time, to underline his words, he made with his arm suggestive poking motions. Hilarious laughter…
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I’ll just add a little follow-up for those interested in this thread (mostly) about the USPHS and the history of its relationship to the marine community. As I noted above, the USPSH probably would not exist in its present form as a corps of uniform wearing commissioned officers if it hadn’t arisen as a medical service for mariners.
EHT67, who replied (above) to my post about the Galveston Marine Hospital, is an engineer on a MARAD Ready Reserve Fleet RO/RO ship on the West Coast. As a result of the exchange between him and me (which you see above), we built up quite a correspondence about the MHS (Marine Hospital Service) and the Galveston hospital. He continues his service on his RRF ship, but is working steadily on his MA in History and soon to take a leave for a year on campus to finish up.
He (EHT67) is a very good student and historian and he has built up quite a fund of historic information about the Galveston Marine Hospital. I think it is going to be the focus of his master’s thesis in history. Given how much he has compiled on the USPHS and its MHS, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go on to write a book on its history. Since he’s been filling me in along the way about his work, I’ve been amazed to learn many things about the PHS, the MHS and the Galveston hospital that I never knew even though I worked there for 2 years.
I just thought I’d post about that as an example of a good thing developing out of an interesting thread on this forum. If something he writes gets published online, I’ll be sure to ask him to post a link because I think it will be interesting stuff.
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I was in the USN '65-'93. First son born in 1971, then two miscarriages before second son in Jan 1976 in Newport, RI. Reassigned to Norfolk, VA, decided to get a vasectomy, and the wait was almost a year in the USN health system.
Went to the USPHS Hospital on Hampton Blvd, had first interview, back for second interview with wife a few days later, back 30 days later (legal waiting period) to both sign the papers, then snipped within a week. Surgery done by a retired urologist who volunteered his time.
Only thing I would change is not riding my motorcycle to the snipping appointment.
The Marine Hospital Service was enacted and founded in 1798 to furnish health care for US Seamen. It provided free care for US Merchant Seamen who were sick or disabled. The system was greatly expanded in the 19th Century. In 1939, the MHS became part of the U.S. Public Health Service.
The 1920 and 1936 Merchant Marine Acts further amplified and expanded health care coverage for US Seamen who became ill or injured while under US Shipping Articles. The Marine Hospitals and their excellent free coverage were also a reason why the Maintenance and Cure provisions of the above acts were resultantly so low in terms of payment.
The laws providing this free care to US Merchant Seamen are still intact. They further were amended to require things like a Master’s Certificate of Service for Medical Care so that the system was not abused by those actually didn’t sail aboard US Flag Vessels for a specified minimum amount of sea time before becoming eligible.
Further, there were Marine Hospitals all over the US- San Francisco (15th & Lake), Staten Island, Norfolk, Boston, New Orleans, and even more- then there were also Clinics- Jacksonville, NYC (Houston St), Norfolk, Honolulu, Port Arthur, just to name a few…
These were vital sources of health care for active US Merchant Mariners until 1981. Instead of striking down the laws which granted Seamen the right of health care- a nearly impossible task- instead the Reagan Administration chose instead to enact laws which basically defunded the USPHS which granted this benefit to US Seamen.
At first this move was largely supported by Maritime Labor- (I was a Group 2 in the NY-NJ MEBA Hall when Fred Schamann announced this support - much to the hooting, hollering and screaming that we members immediately voiced) It seems that at least the National MEBA (comprised of D1 & D2 back then) wanted to start their own Hospitals and Clinic systems- which never really panned out…
Much to our surprise- after receiving this support the Reagan Administration quickly shut down the USPHS to Seamen- then promptly attempted to destroy an MEBA affiliate - PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers) - the rest is history.
Interesting to note that even MSC supported the closings, and nearly required (they couldn’t force this) that all Civilian Mariners obtain private health insurance to cover medical expenses…
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