Child Abuse: The Role of the Physician and the Hospital

Abstract

We are attempting to do the job which our legislature mandated for public agencies. The legislature did not mandate the money to allow these agencies to effectively fulfill their responsibilities, nor were provisions made for a coordinating individual or agency to supervise and administer the procedures which were mandated. Until these deficiencies are corrected, the hospital must assume a much broader role in child abuse. The hospital is the logical agency which can immediately bridge the wide gap now existing in long-term protection and rehabilitation. That hospitals may be willing to step in and perform this function is suggested by the fact that as of June 1, 1971, 18 hospitals formed Child Abuse Committees at the request of the County Medical Society of New York. If under the present laws of New York state the hospitals are to take on this added burden–and we believe that they should–it is imperative that their work be given support and that recommendations of the hospitals' Child Abuse Committees carry great weight in the deliberations and decisions of the Bureau of Child Welfare and the Family Court.