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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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sponsors in the Senate for Hill by telephoning to them and seeing them, and by sending wires to them-Senator Hill got the resolution passed in the Senate and Percy Priest got it passed in the House. It was an elaborate survey, much more elaborate than anything that we undertake, and I was afraid that it was going to be too elaborate and would just gather dust.

Now, actually, the bill provided for a million 250 thousand dollars to do a survey of the needs in the field of mental illness by voluntary agencies and various groups, and the Surgeon General asked the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association to cooperate on this survey. So, it did have a committee of the American Medical Association actively sponsoring the survey and when they came out with the needs about three years ago, the AMA's committee did say that there were vast unmet needs and made a series of proposals, including large amounts of additional money and matching grants to states for better care of mental patients, Federal funds for states, so that the states could care for their patients better and be able to get them out faster. In New York State we still have mental patients who are still cared for less well than prisoners, at least it costs us 25 cents a day less to care for them as it does for prisoners.

The truth is that this mental health survey resolution, which passed in the summer of '55, now has been implemented by a special message by Kennedy to the Congress to take action about giving matching funds to states to take care of pattents better and to do more in training and to provide out-patient





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