A 100-Year Affair With BCH Ends

A bitter struggle between three Boston area medical schools apparently came to a halt this week, and with it, the century-long affiliation of Harvard with Boston City Hospital.

The board of trustees of the Department of Health and Hospitals voted Wednesday to award administrative control of the hospital's professional services to the Boston University School of Medicine.

While Harvard pledged to honor its present commitments at the hospital, Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, said that the board's decision would undoubtedly mean an ultimate end to a "proud and medically rewarding association that has existed between the Boston City Hospital and the Harvard Medical School since the hospital first opened its doors in 1864."

Since the city of Boston announced its drastic cutbacks for the Department of Health and Hospitals early in February, BCH has been a hotbed of controversy.

Presumably the department would have required a $68 million budget to operate the hospital's services on the same scale as last year.

Therefore, when the city alloted $56.1 million to the department for fiscal 1974, the board cut by 30 per cent the number of beds at the hospital, and by 20 per cent the number of house officers.

The city, under fire for its allocations, urged the deans of Harvard, Tufts, and B.U. Medical Schools, which had been operating the hospital's services jointly, to devise a scheme to eradicate alleged triplication of resources.

Rather than agreeing on a plan, Harvard and B.U. went to war for sole jurisdiction of BCH's services. Tufts attempted to play the arbiter by proposing continued joint management by the three schools.

But this week, Tufts too, lost its bid for a role in administrative control.

Although the trustees' edict gave liability for the operation of services related to medical care to B.U., the school may subcontract Harvard and Tufts to help meet its responsibility.

Under the board's ruling B.U. will have responsibility for the medical care provided in the entire system of the Department of Health and Hospitals.

The trustees also mandated that the three medical, three surgical, and three specialty services, which had been simultaneously maintained by the three schools, be merged into single services under the jurisdiction of B.U.

Although the fate of the Harvard and Tufts internship and residency programs remains unsettled, observers at the two schools have speculated that the consolidation of the programs into a single entity run by B.U. would probably preclude long-term involvement by the schools in BCH.

In assessing the decision of the trustees, Lawrence Strum, director of the office of communications of the B.U. Medical Center, contrasted what he termed B.U.'s "main interest in patient care" to what he called Harvard's primary interest in research and teaching.

Although the trustees expressed hope that there would be continued involvement in patient care by Harvard and Tufts, it is unclear at this time whether Harvard will adhere to its earlier vow to withdraw its $8.2 million in grants and endowments if it were forced to relinquish the responsibility it held.

Some observers have speculated that the Medical School will probably relocate the departments whose seats are now based primarily at BCH.