he hospital. But if you have any fondness for the old place, you better head over there fast. It will be closed at the end of the month and its patients and staff shifted into a new building next door, according to a Kaiser press release. I’m sure the new hospital is much improved but how can you beat a baby in a drawer?
“The best place to keep a baby is in a drawer. Mothers in the maternity department at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Los Angeles, California find it’s a tidy arrangement – and handy, too”
- The London Press (UK) Nov. 29, 1953
“Perhaps one of the hospital’s most striking innovations was its maternity/newborn care concept. Each maternity room has built-in, sound-proofed individual nurseries behind each bed. Bassinets were kept in a drawer that could be pulled alongside a new mother’s bed through the wall from each individual nursery. An automatic signal notified the attending nurse when the bassinet was pushed back. A viewing window above the bassinet allowed visitors to see the baby without danger to the infant.”
- from a 1978 Kaiser brochure devoted to the hospital’s 25th anniversary
Photos courtesy Kaiser Permanente.
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