The Healthcare Dilemma

[Waiting Room, Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital], ca. 1890, v1972.1.801; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Historical Society.

As the initial application deadline for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act approaches, I would imagine that healthcare is on the minds of many. I recently spent a couple of hours online shopping for healthcare and filling out an application. The application process was slightly bothersome, and I experienced a high blood pressure moment when I first saw the prices of the healthcare plans; however, I am slowly adapting to the idea that having healthcare when I need it could be worth the expense.

The issues of who does and who does not have a right to healthcare - and who should be paying for their own healthcare and who should be paying for the people who cannot afford healthcare - have certainly been fiercely contested topics in the recent past. However, these are not new topics of debate. The brimming waiting room of the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital for the poor in 1890 – pictured above –  highlights the long-standing need for healthcare services for financially struggling, less-wealthy populations.  Established in 1868, and opened in 1869, the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital was one of many private charities and institutions that proliferated in the city during the Progressive Era in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Although established as a private charity, the hospital was in high demand and unable to run entirely on private donations. The City of Brooklyn began to contribute public subsidies to the hospital in 1878 (Baehr, Harry W., A Hospital’s First Century: Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital 1868 – 1968, Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital: Brooklyn, 1968, 18).

The Brooklyn Historical Society has many collections devoted to different health-related institutions. For information specifically related to the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital, please see the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital Records, 1868 – 1976 (1985.005). To learn more broadly about healthcare in Brooklyn, you might be interested in the Brooklyn hospitals and health services organizations collection (ARC.141).

The Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital was able to help thousands of people in Brooklyn each year while it remained opened. I sincerely hope that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will be able to help millions in a similar way, across the country. Good luck to those of you who have not yet completed the online application. May you have a speedy and consistent internet connection.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our new website here.  To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Fri, 1:00-5:00 p.m.