My description of the hospital system in Maryland may be an over-
simplification. Our problem has been one of bringing about a balance
between the categories of institutions. Jointly with the federal govern-
ment, we have administered the Hill-Burton or Hospital Construction
Program under which new hospitals, or additions to existing ones, have
been constructed in Baltimore City and most of the counties during the
first ten years of that program. Our chronic disease hospital program
was inaugurated with the authorization of the construction of three
hospitals by the 1945 General Assembly. The three—Deer's Head in
Salisbury, Montebello in Baltimore and Western Maryland State Hos-
pital in Hagerstown—have a total capacity of 1, 062 beds. Deer's Head
with 284 beds, is now fully staffed and occupied. Montebello, with 480
beds, and Western Maryland with 289, are not fully utilized because of
staffing problems. I think it should be pointed out that, while the length
of stay of patients has been shortened generally by the more intensive
services available, the chronic disease hospitals have also contributed
greatly to this reduction in length of stay.

In recent years, Maryland's mental institutions and tuberculosis hos-
pitals have been able to admit patients as the need has occurred. In
general, the transfer of patients between the categories named has been
accomplished with reasonable dispatch.

The bottleneck now is in the category of nursing homes, and, upon
my recommendation, the General Assembly at its recent session took
steps to alleviate that condition. Most of the nursing homes in Maryland
are operated privately for profit, and as a result they are situated in
areas of highest income. Conversely, the areas of low income are in
short supply. Recently, I signed into law legislation which will provide
state funds to match federal funds to provide two-thirds of the cost of
building and equipping nursing homes. These funds are available to
non-profit corporations and public bodies. Highest priority will be given
to areas of low-income and of the highest unmet need for nursing homes.
I hope and expect that as a result of this action a sufficient number of
nursing homes to meet the needs of this type of service will be con-
structed. As these nursing homes are built, we hope to arrive at a bal-
ance with other types of facilities so that there will be a free flow of
patients who need such services from the general, chronic disease, men-
tal and tuberculosis hospitals into the nursing homes.

In this connection, it should be noted that the recent session of the
General Assembly also took steps to increase welfare grants to persons
needing care in nursing homes. In my supplemental budget, funds were
provided to increase the grants to such persons from the present $120

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