The American Hospital of Paris is a private, non-profit hospital that is certified by the French Haute Autorité de Santé (French National Authority for Health). Established in 1906 in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, it is the only civilian hospital outside the U.S. that is accredited by the Joint Commission, an organization that sets the highest standards for health care around the world.
Image courtesy of the American Hospital of Paris
The hospital was in the midst of significant expansion when Beauford was admitted for several tests in 1961. These confirmed severe liver and kidney problems diagnosed at the hospital in Athens, Greece where Beauford was treated after his suicide attempts in Patras earlier that year.
Beauford returned to the American Hospital in February 1970, where the clinic treated him for flu and heart palpatations. This was shortly after his Christmas 1969 visit to Knoxville.
During the fall of 1970, the hospital treated Beauford's dear friend and mentee, James Baldwin, presumably for hepatitis that had been diagnosed in Istanbul when Baldwin was there to direct the play Fortune and Men's Eyes.
Other friends and acquaintances of Beauford who were treated at the American Hospital include Tria French, a friend and literary agent of Baldwin, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage there.
Writer Richard Wright was treated at the hospital several times during his 14-year stay in Paris. His wife Ellen had an appendectomy there and his youngest daughter was born there. Led by Wright, the Franco-American Fellowship protested the establishment's discriminatory hiring policy regarding black people in 1951.
The American Hospital informed Les Amis that all medical records for patients treated there prior to 1989 have been destroyed in accordance with their policy to archive records for a period of 30 years. Therefore, the details of Beauford's diagnostic and treatment regimens at this institution are now permanently lost.
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