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Source: www.jimhightower.com

Tuesday, January 20, 2004 "A HOSPITAL HORROR"

What is one of the most dangerous things you can do when you get seriously ill? Go to the hospital.

Talk about Catch-22! You're sick and you're told by your doctor to go to the hospital - but no one tells you the deadly little secret of today's hospitals. They kill. They kill because they have inadequate infection control practices. Patients going in for a particular problem often acquire infections from the hospital itself, often causing death.

Lots of deaths. The Center for Disease Control reports that nearly 90,000 Americans a year die from these hospital infections. That's more than die from auto accidents and homicides combined. About two million patients a year catch infections from their hospitals - one of every 20 people who go in.

What could be done? A huge step forward would be the simplest one: hand washing. Infections could be cut by more than half if there was an effective program for all medical personnel to wash their hands regularly, especially washing with alcohol handrubs that are convenient to use and more effective at killing bacteria. Yet, hospitals, apparently watching their bottom lines, don't have such a system in place - and none are required to put it in place.

On the other hand, some hospitals do an excellent job of preventing infections. How are you to know the good from the bad? You can't. Believe it or not, there's no requirement that hospitals report or publicly disclose their infection rates so we patients can decide which is the best place for us.

Luckily, some states are pushing mandatory disclosure laws. Unluckily, hospital lobbyists are pushing a bill in congress that would preempt the ability of states to require this disclosure, instead setting up a voluntary federal program for reporting infection rates - and even these voluntary reports would be kept from the public.

This is stupid. Consumers Union is fighting for full disclosure. Join them at StopHospitalInfections.org.

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