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Title: Medical Team at Columbia Author: Linda Lanphear Date: September, 1968 Language: en Topics: occupation, Columbia University, 1968, medical team Source: Black & Red Number 1, September, 1968, page 48 Notes: Scanned from original
The following is an interview with Sylvia Sternberg from New York City
who was a member of a volunteer medical team during the student uprising
at Columbia University in spring, 1968.
Question: describe the medical team you worked with. How did people get
involved?
Sylvia Sternberg: At Columbia the people were volunteers.
A group called The Medical Committee for Human Rights got started when
the students at Hamilton Hall put out a call to a doctor who everyone
knows is involved in radical activities. The students said that they
would like to have someone come around because they did not know how
long they would stay in the buildings. So a few of the doctors and
medical nurses went down to the buildings during that week and checked
people out for colds and cuts. And then on the night of the bust those
people called other people and it grew into a greater thing. But still
there were only about five MDs; not even five because some were just
medical students. Most of them didn’t even know each other because they
were all from different groups. People got involved with working on the
medical team when they heard about the incidents over the radio and just
felt the need to go down.
Question: They weren’t related to Columbia University then?
Sylvia Sternberg: Well, a few were but a lot were not and this presented
a problem because later on the gates were closed to all outsiders and
people could not get in. Even if they showed identification that proved
that they were medical personnel it didn’t count; you had to be a part
of the university. And also, the doctors had other commitments making it
necessary for them to leave and come back, and, of course, they could
not do that either.
Question: How were you supplied?
Sylvia Sternberg: As far as supplies go, it was all kind of liberated
material from where people worked. We were, on the whole, very, very
under-supplied; people only carried around pieces of gauze to stop the
bleeding.
Question: Did St. Luke’s hospital cooperate at all?
Sylvia Sternberg: No, it was very strange. Some students were sent there
by the policy and the hospital staff made lists of who went in and the
lists were given to the police. Not only that, but students were
harassed by doctors there and when students returned to the university
they would refuse to go to the hospital again because the doctors would
give lectures and moral admonitions to nervous, injured students. And so
finally, as the word got around, students would refuse to go to the
hospital at all and more and more came to us.
Question: Where was your medical team located on campus?
Sylvia Sternberg: Nine of us were just on the grounds with blankets laid
out and it was very unorganized. There were only about eight really
medical people doing anything. But during that night other people joined
them and by morning they were in Ferris Booth Hall and in Philosophy
Hall where they could finally get their supplies organized.
Question: Were there many doctors from the university health service?
Sylvia Sternberg: No. Later on we called the University Health Service
to ask for assistance; in fact I made the call asking for stretchers and
other first aid material, and the nurse just said that the Health
Service is open from 9:00 to 5:00 and any student can go over there
during that period. So I asked her what happened at night when students
were bleeding and there was nobody to help them and she just repeated
the same thing about being open from 9:00 to 5:00 and said that she
couldn’t speak with me any more because they were helping a student
then.
Question: What about the university medical center?
Sylvia Sternberg: The medical center was in a very bad state because
there was a student movement at the center and they were going to go out
on strike in sympathy with the other students. At the medical center it
was just quiet and no doctor would cooperate.
Question: But I mean, what did the students have in mind by going on
strike? Couldn’t they have occupied the center and used the facilities?
Sylvia Sternberg: That wasn’t possible because many of the students have
duties in the Medical Center and there was a big question as to what
they would do. They were able to lull it through and later they came
down and had a demonstration. The administration at the Medical Center
started having faculty meetings which they never had before, discussing
how to keep the students together and they finally decided to allow the
students to have a student government and a representative to meet with
the curriculum committee. They made these kinds of concessions because
they were really very frightened.
Question: Did many people from the community help out?
Sylvia Sternberg: Yes. There were people bringing in food, particularly
at Hamilton Hall where a lot of the black community was bringing in food
and medical supplies. There were a number of priests and nuns from
different groups bringing in food and they were stopped, which nearly
caused a riot. A priest and nun went to hand out food at Low Library and
the cops chased them away. The jocks on the other side of the fence were
trying to barricade Low Library too and literally starve the people out.
Question: A characteristic part of American propaganda is about what
communists do to priests and nuns. Can you imagine newspaper headlines
telling about American cops beating up priests and nuns?
Sylvia Sternberg: As a matter of fact, Rabbi Goldman, the Jewish
chaplain at Columbia, was beaten over the head and was really messed up
by the cops. Then a very terrible scene occurred on the south lawn.
There was a nurse who was taking care of patients there, two of which
were Rabbi Goldman and a boy whose eye was bleeding profusely due to the
fact that he had been wearing contact lenses at the time he was hit and
one lens had broken in his eye. It was really feared that he would lose
his vision. The nurse had both the boy and Rabbi Goldman lying down on
some blankets and, for some reason, the cops decided to run across the
lawn and, of course, push all the students before them. When this
happened the nurse started screaming that the people lying down could
not be moved, whereupon some students got around them and started to
scream things like “First Aid Station!” and “Nurse!”, but the cops
didn’t listen at all and finally students lay down over the boy and
Rabbi Goldman to prevent them from being hurt any more. It was terrible
because the cops didn’t stop at anything, they paid no attention, they
honored nothing.
Question: During the attacks like the one you described, was the tiny
medical crew able to do anything at all?
Sylvia Sternberg: Well, at this particular stop there was only one
nurse, the rest were spread all over the other areas, so very little
could be done until the cops left. Afterwards, the people could be moved
inside the buildings and receive treatment, and in cases like the one
boy, an ambulance could be called. He did not lose his vision but
certainly came very close; it is slightly impaired. But the worst scene
of all took place when the cops moved out into the street and brought in
horses. In the street there could be no medical people at all, even
though this was an especially dangerous area because the horses were
trampling people. Horses were just running into people and the terrible
thing was that you could not run any place because there were cops
everywhere. The cops would say, “Get down the streets” and beat people
to drive them down the street. So you would run down one street and cops
would hit you over the head; then you would run the other way and run
into more cops who would beat you over the head. But the fatal mistake
was when a person fell. If you tripped it was all over because the cops
would just get you and beat you. When you saw the head lacerations you
knew that it was not from just one hit. There were a few concussions.
You could see that they were just hit over and over again.
In the following days the medical team got more organized in Earl Hall,
which is the chaplain’s offices, and the ministers helped us a-great
deal. They set up a station where people could come in 24 hours a day,
and there were people coming in 24 hours a day. There was always a
doctor there, and that worked out very well because we could send out
teams from there to help students and people soon learned that Earl Hall
was the student First Aid Station. Some seminary students also set up an
ambulance service. They had a Volkswagen bus which they were able to
park near campus and bring people to us. They were also able to get
stretchers and other materials which we were not able to get before. Our
main effort was not treatment of people but initial first aid.
Question: Did the medical team ever help the police?
Sylvia Sternberg: We took the position of being apolitical even though
nobody really was, everyone was very far from being apolitical; but if
we had come across a cop who was injured we would have treated him. One
cop was treated when he came running up, very frantically, screaming
that he had a human bite in the stomach. But the point is that we had to
be very careful because we knew that the university officials and the
police were keeping an eye on us. We really had to walk a tight rope
because doctors were already being hit over the head and if we had not
been careful there would have been no chance for us.