Unit's Closing Affects Heart-switch Plan

A possible heart transplant for a 51-year-old Kalamazoo, man was in doubt today after the 20-bed Clinical Research Unit at the University Medical' Center closed its doors. ' The unit was completely shut down because of a lack of federal funds to opérate it, aceording to Dr. Arthur French, the unit's director. Closed for an indefinite period, the unit is one of 10 such units across the nation that have Deen closed for lack of federal funds, according to U.S. Public Health Service officials in Washington. As a result of its closing, P. T. Barnum of Kalamazoo, who was moved into the unit from Veterans Hospital here oa Aug. 8 for a possible heart transplant, is among patients' returned to regular units of University Hospital. The problem is that Piarnumi does not have the funds to pay hospital bilis in the regular hospital. Care in the Climcal Re-, search Unit is paid for out of a National Institutes of: Health grant and is free to patients. Contacted by Barnum's wife, Neil Staebler, Democratie national committeeman from Ann Arbor, has contacted Sen Philip A. Hart, IT-Mich., in an attempt to see if anything can be done about the situation. Staebler said this morning that he had received a caU from Hart's office , toda.y and that "the senator is working on it." He said he expects to hear further from Sen. Hart later today. Barnum is a candidate on the Democratie ticket in November for the Kalantazoo County Board of Supervisors. In the meantime, Mrs. Barnum has an appointment witlij the patiënt reipresentative at i University Hospital to talk about the posslbility of raising funds from ofcher sourees to keep her husbsnd in the hospital and providfj money for the transplant if U-M surgeons decided to do one. ' Manager o! the HIchigan Secretary of State automobile license bureau in Kalamazoo, Barnum, a raative of Mt. Pleasant, was graduated from Jackson High School. He also attended Jackson Junior College and Western Michigan University.. The father of four children, his son, Thomas, a private in the Army was flown back from Vietnam through efforts of the Red Cross to be at his father's side. Barnum is afflicted with cardio myopathy, or degeneration of the heart muscle. A donor has not yet been available for a possible heart transplant, ;according to a hospital spokestnan. The hospital itself cannot bear the cost, hospital officials said. Dr. William N. Hubbard Jr., dean 'of the U-M Medical School, said last Saturday that the number of patients in the unit would be "sharply reduced" untiï federal grants are renewed on Oct. 1. At that time it was expected thaèt additional money might be made available from other sou rees to continue operatingi the: unit on a reduced basis, bun; sueh funds were not made; available, French said. Eare of . patients occupying' the unit is paid for out oí research grant money provided1 by the National Institutes of Health. But this year, for the first time, the federal agency didn't have the money to provide supplemental grants to) make up for rising patiënt care costs until the grants are renewed on Oct. 1, 1 Grants are made on the basis of patiënt care costs in October of each year, and in the past, supplemental grants were made! when' patiënt care c o s t si tncreased during the year. Patients occupying the unit are given "free" care with the cost beihg paid by the federal agency. French said he hopes that Congress will allocate enoughi funds to the agency to permití resumption of operatkras at full scale in October. Established in 1962, the unit has provided hospital care for about 500 patients per year who enter the unit on a voluntary basis and receive free medical care prorvided by grant funds. Last year the unit received a federal grant of $751,639 to opérate during the present grant year. Voiunteer patients are accepted into the unit only when their particular illnesses fit one or another of a large rmmber of research projects being carried out by U-M physicians. Most of the people who have received kidney transplants in Michigan have been patients in the unit, as have hemophilia victims undergoing control of their disease so they can undergo surgery. Persons requiring advanced treatment of a variety of metabolic disorders, these requiring close monitoring of special diets, and others requiring correction of primary aldosteronïsm, a disease causing hypertension, are a m o n g other patients who have occupied the unit. i In general the unit accepts patients who have medical problems that are not routine. The patients benefit from the unit and so do the medical scientists who are aided by them in finding new and better treatment for disease.