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J 8ECTION1 - PAGE l> . PLAINPEALER . WEDNESDAY. JULY g. IIM Regional MWS Hospitals to close in near future? By United Press International CHICAGO -- Hospital closings ^ In the Chicago area, which cur­ rently average less than one per year, could Jump to five per year over the next five years, a study concluded. 5 The study of hospital failures, { according to published reports, J reveals that economic hardship • may force as many as 500 • hospitals nationwide, including 25 ^Jn the Chicago area, to close in the •S^next five years. Daniel Longo, program director ' of health-services reseach for the Chicago-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, con- By United Press International ST. LOUIS -- A 71-year-old woman who was evicted for fail­ ing to pay four months' rent was surprised authorities had found nearly $200,000 in her $175-a- month apartment. "I just don't know how much it is," Thelma Lutz said in an inter­ view in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch. She signed herself into Malcolm Bliss Mental Health -Center after being evicted. Authorities said they had found nearly $42,092 in cash, $82,000 in certificates of deposit and about $60,000 worth of U.S. savings bonds stashed in envelopes, in old ducted the five-year study at John Hopkins University. The study, published in the cur­ rent issue of the journal Medical Care, said 329 hospitals closed from 1976 through last year, a rate of about 40 a year. The rate of hospital closings is expected to increase to 100 a year over the next five years as efforts are made to halt rising medical costs, Longo said. There are about 7,000 hospitals in the United States, most of them general community hospitals. "Because of uncontrollable and often unpredictable changes in their environments, these great social institutions are just as much at risk as any other business," Longo said. "Much to eveyone's surprise they are clos­ ing." Hospital closings in the Chicago area have averaged less than one a year and should rise to about five a year over the next five years, Longo said. - The John Hopkins study reveal­ ed that the hospitals at the greatest risk are ones with an oc­ cupancy rate below 65 percent. The Chicago Hospital Council said the average occupancy dropped below that level in April, the lowest level since records first were kept 16 years ago. The average occupancy rate for suburban Chicago hospitals was 69.3 percent. Peak occupancy in Chicago area hospitals occurred in 1968 when they reported 83 percent of the beds were filled. The decline in patients is blam­ ed on government Medicare and Medicaid payments, decreasing hospital stays, unemployment and cost-cutting measures by private insurance companies among other factors. "This is the most difficult period for hospitals in the last 50 years," said Sheldon Gulinson, senior vice president of the hospital council. "It Is possible that some hospitals may close, but we don't know how many." Evicted woman surprised at $200,000 find purses and under sofa cushions. Some of the bonds dated to the 1930s. "The cash amount is wrong," said Lutz. She said she had some savings bonds, but had thought her certificates of deposit were at a bank. She said she didn't know what happened to the money. "I just understood that someone is taking care of it," she said. A friend of Lutz, Florence Lowman, said an administrator was overseeng the money. Lutz told the Post-Dispatch her rent was $175 a month. "I always thought that you were supposed to get 30 days' notice before they could evict you," she said, adding that she had gotten her notice only the night before. Lutz said she was waiting for her sister to arrive from Florida to get her out of the mental hospital. "I don't belong in a place like this," she said. "They kind of think you're off your rocker over here. But I've always worked and gotten along with people." She said when she was evicted she had been "looking to move. I want to find my own place. I in­ tended to go to Florida. I would like to buy a trailer to live in." Lowman said authorities had told her Lutz had been "put out of quite a few homes for not paying rent. "I don't understand it, because she was always pretty prompt with what she had to do," Lowman said. Explorer project in space By United Press International ST. LOUIS -- When the space shuttle Discovery makes its 51 it r : Try out for our back-to-school fashion show* We're having a fashion show at Spring Hill Mall. And we want your child to try out for it. The tryouts are open to boys and girls ages 5-18 on the following dates and times: MONDAY, JULY 30 AGES TIME 5-6 12:00 P.M. 7,8,9 1:00 P.M. 10,11,12 3:00 P.M. WEDNESDAY AUGUST 1 13,14,15 12:00 P.M. 16,17,18 1:00 P.M. The winners get to participate in our big Back-To-School fashion show on August 11. Contestants will be judged on poise, charm, and eye contact. Please register at least 1/2 hour before the judging begins. Winners will be notified by phone. So let your children strut their stuff for the fashion show tryouts at Spring Hill Mall. Spring Hill Mall Uncomplicated Shopping. Apart from the Crowd. Routes 31 & 72, West Dundee. Sears, Marshall Field's, Bergner's, JCPenney, Spiess and 125 other fine shops. November flight, it will carry a project designed by St. Louis Ex­ plorer Post 9005 to show that spacecraft propellant tanks can be filled in space. The group's experiment is one of 10 Explorer experiments the space agency chose in a nation­ wide search. The post designed a simple machine they call ESCAPE for Explorer Space Capillary Pump­ ing Experiment. Rib sculptors Rib sculptors Andy Parte (left and Travis Hargidine Royal Swiness" one of the entries in the rib sculpting hog capital of the world, Kewanee, IL. display "Her contest at the National MWS Report says government should consider dumping waste in seas By United Press International* WASHINGTON - The United States should consider dumping low-level radioactive waste in the oceans, says a report by a govern­ ment advisory panel soon to be headed by ex-EPA chief Anne Burford. The National Advisory Commit­ tee on Oceans and the Atmosphere concluded that the "chances of radioactivity finding its way into the food we eat are minimal... if care is used in choosing an ocean site" for disposing of atomic waste. The controversial report to President Reagan and Congress, which suggests ending the na­ tion's 14-year moratorium on ocean-dumping of radioactive material, is being released this month. The outgoing chairman of the committee, John Knauss, will be replaced by Mrs. Burford, who did not have a role in preparing the report, titled "Nuclear Waste Management and the Use of the Sea." Reagan's announcement that he wanted Mrs. Burford, former ad­ ministrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to head the obscure panel caused an uproar and renewed criticism of Regan's much-maligned environmental policies. Mrs. Burford was forced to resign from the EPA last year with the agency engulfed in con­ troversy over allegations of lax enforcement of pollution laws, mismanagement of the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program and conflicts of interest. The committee, which advises the National Oceanic and At­ mospheric Administration, admit­ ted in its study that the "track record of the experts in managing the radioactive waste problem in the past -- and in keeping the public properly informed -- does not instill confidence in their pre­ sent management schemes." It also conceded that the "ecological effects of prolonged exposure to low-level radioactivi­ ty ... are not well understood for either land or water ecosystems." Nonetheless, it argued that ocean disposal of a variety of low- level nuclear waste -- ranging from radioactive isotopes used in hospitals to atomic submarines, minus their fuel rods -- can be done without causing environmen­ tal harm. In a letter to Reagan and Con­ gress that accompanies the report, Knauss concluded that "although we do not suggest a reversal of U.S. land-oriented disposal policy at this time, we do recommend a revision of policy that excludes the use of the ocean fo/ low-letef^radioacllve waste disposal." Low-level nuclear waste re­ mains radioactive for about 100 years, while high-level waste -- such as the spent fuel rods of atomic reactors -- remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. Ocean-dumping of nuclear material, Knauss stressed, should not be done without "adequately funded and well-identified monitoring and research efforts which would provide full assess­ ment of the fate and effects of such disposal." The study drew strong criticism from Greenpeace, an interna­ tional environmental group primarily concerned with ocean resources. "We are concerned that radioactive material does not disperse uniformly in the ocean," said Jon Hinck, a toxic waste specialist for Greenpeace. "So you end up with hot spots that con­ centrate radioactivity. This, in turn, is picked up by marine life and can get into the food chain and contaminate edible fish." A nuclear industry official said that while the industry believes radioactive waste can be disposed of safely in the oceans, it is unlike­ ly to push for such a program. "Politically, this just won't fly, at least not now," said the official, who asked not to be identified. LA poor face Olympic struggle as city cleans streets of homeless By United Press International LOS ANGELES - The City of Angels is having little success in its campaign to hide its homeless from the view of its Olympic guests. City fathers have deployed a posse of 30 police officers mounted on horses into the downtown area and Skid Row to reinforce other lawmen there but hundreds of street people still roam central Los Angeles. "We're trying to sanitize the area," Police Capt. Billy Wedgeworth told the Los Angeles Times. Despite intensified law enforce­ ment, the usual hundreds of homeless were lined up for Sun­ day lunch outside the Union Rescue Mission on Main Street. The mission, one of the nation's oldest shelters for homeless men, is only one block from City Hall, a posh shopping center and the New Otani Hotel, which already is fill­ ed with Olympic guests and media representatives here to cover the games. Many of the street people -- alcoholics, the mentally ill and others just down on their luck -- sleep at the mission. Hundreds of others bed down on the sidewalks and in city parks. The Rev. Murray McDougall, chaplain at the mission, takes a dim view of the intensified police4 activity, which he said means that street people can be "cited for jaywalking or jus t about anything." "The policy abuses ̂ people who are already abused," said McDougall, who added that some city fathers believe the mission should move out of the central ci­ ty. "We're a thorn in their sides," McDougall said. "There's a feel­ ing that if you moved the mission, the transients would leave. Per­ sonally, 1 think it's all these liquor stores around here that draw them." " M y p r o b l e m Is n o t alcoholism." said Cyril Ldtaa. 12. who left economically depressed Pittsburgh nine months ago in search of work. "My problem is unemployment." Lukas slept in a cardboard box before the mission took him in and gave him a "helping hand job" at $5 a week as a night guard on the premises. Police say one of the main roles of the mounted unit is to awaken drunks sleeping on sidewalks and in alleys and to keep as many of them as possible off streets trod by visitors. Social workers say stepped-up police activity has dispersed tran­ sients, pushing some of them south of downtown. But no one really believes all of them will be out of sight be the time the Games start Saturday. Attorneys who represent tran­ sients say the street people have felt threatened by rumors that massive arrests are planned to clear the area. They say they are prepared to seek court injunctions against the police U such raids oc­ cur. McDougall, citing the first book of Corinthians in the Bible, figures there were street people around when the Greeks started the Olympics. The poor, he believes, will always be around. I