








Key to all
functions of the hospital is electricity, provided by portable
generators, two are shown being uncrated and assembled. Large gas
burners, also shown being assembled, are used to boil water for
sterilization of equipment and bandages. Volunteers trained with
autoclave pressure sterilizers can clean a batch of surgical instruments
in thirty minutes. Once it is up and running, the laboratory will take
blood and urine samples to diagnose radiation sickness. Interestingly,
New York's plan called for a portable X-Ray machine, towed by a special
trailer and staffed with a technician who would travel among the
emergency hospitals. According to the film, one traveling X-Ray unit
and technician would provide imaging services to trauma patients in four
geographically close hospitals. Overseeing the set-up of these
technological services, along with the surgery bays and secondary
medical wards, is an administrative team. They also oversee resupply
and food service. Administrators are encouraged to utilize existing
spaces in their adaptive buildings, including offices and cafeterias.
As the narrator runs through the steps of the plan again, several scenes
are shown of volunteers unloading a packaged hospital at an empty
school and tending to mock victims. Like many civil defense films, the
final scene serves as a call to action, encouraging viewers to enlist in
emergency preparation services and to learn every detail of their duty
to "ensure their Lease of Life". Because Lease of Life was release by a
State agency, its official fate is difficult to determine. It does not
appear to have been distributed by the Federal Civil Defense
Administration like some state produced films, and references to it seem
restricted entirely to New York State civil defense publications. The
idea of the improvised emergency hospital certainly prevailed for the
next several years, however, and several films were made about them.
Two in particular, Emergency Hospital, released by the the F.C.D.A. in
1959 (2) and Disaster Hospital from the Office of Civil Defense and The
Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1965, depict how New
York's plan was ultimately adapted by Federal Authorities across the
United States. (3)
1. New York's Health: 1957 Annual Report. New York State Department of Health. December 31, 1957. 258.
2. Motion Pictures on Civil Defense. Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. July 1959. 3.
3. Civil Defense Motion Picture Catalog. Office of Civil Defense. September 1966. 30.