Guffey denies he sought job for physician
Says he wanted doctor to be given work after he had been appointed
Washington –
U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) today explained that those letters he sent to District of Columbia officials in 1942 were not for the purpose of getting his personal physician a job, but to get some work for him to do after he got the job.
Mr. Guffey came under fire of some of his Senate colleagues when it became known that he had threatened an investigation of the District’s hospitals and used “pressure” on behalf of Dr. Eugene de Savitsch, in two letters to DC officials, authorship of which Mr. Guffey admitted. The Senator issued a statement today to clear up “misstatements and a large amount of misinformation concerning these letters.”
He said:
In the first place, the letters were not written in any effort to get anybody a job. At the time they were written, Dr. de Savitsch was and had been for two years a consulting surgeon at Glenn Dale Sanitarium, a position to which Dr. [George C.] Ruhland [district health officer] appointed him.
In the second place, there was no question of getting anyone on the payroll. In the three years of his association with Glenn Dale Sanitarium, Dr. de Savitsch drew three checks for $15 each and in each case, he turned the checks over to indigent patients. Dr. de Savitsch has a large private practice and doesn’t need to get on a public payroll.
Mr. Guffey added that the physician was never given anything to do, because of Dr. Ruhland’s policies, and the letters were written in an attempt to correct the situation. He cited Dr. de Savitsch’s medical qualifications.