The Fight Continues

As you probably know, the infection reporting bill did not make it out of the Legislature this year. We'll try again next year. No doubt the hospital industry will continue spending money on lobbying the legislature to vote down a requirement to report their infection rate. It seems to me that money could be spent on improving infection control in the hospital and then they wouldn't be concerned about reporting their infection rate. I wonder how hospitals justify diverting money to special interest lobbyists when that money should be spent on the children? I thought the concept was to "eliminate disease in children" not "eliminate evidence of disease hospitals cause in children." Maybe I misinterpreted.

They're clever about it too - hospitals wouldn't want a paper trail from hospital to lobbyist, so their money goes to industry associations that then hire the lobbyists. Even then, numerous hospitals did have staff members present to testify in Olympia against the infection reporting bill. Gee, if they are so cost-pressured and short-staffed, how can they afford to employ a person who hangs out all day at the Capitol? I'd like to know how the children benefitted from that.

You can see Hunter's personal testimonial at:

http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/stophospitalinfections/learn.html

We are fortunate to have so many people helping her fight for her rights until she can speak up for herself.