He wrote this in 2009. Why do we not hear more about this since then?
In 2008, there were 37,261 traffic fatalities, of which 11,773 were due to a BAC of .08, roughly 12% of the number that dies due to infections in hospital. But organizations like Mother Against Drunk-driving are willing to throw $26 million annually, to fight for harsher sentencing laws and stricter enforcement. This stricter enforcement resulted in the arrest of almost 1.5 million people in the U.S. in 2008 which add to these costs.
The deaths that occur thorough the spread of infection in hospitals may be just as criminal, since they are preventable as drunk-driving, but they do not result in any arrests, and there is no enforcement efforts because that are no laws, and no organizations with big budgets to lobby for new legislation. In fact, in is often the taxpayers that get stuck with the cost of treatment in cases where the patient is elderly and on Medicare.
Perhaps the big question becomes: Why do we pay hospitals for treating the people they make sick, why are the hospitals not liable? Where is the incentive for them to change practices, to self regulate, if we to not demand action?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/
There is at least some hope that this will change at somepoint.
"There’s a new tool for tracking the spread of infections and diseases in hospitals. Developed by the Canadian company Infonaut, this tool tracks the movements of health care workers in hospitals, including if they’ve washed their hands or not! Toronto General will be the first hospital in the world to use this technology. Dr. Michael Gardam is Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the University Health Network in Toronto, and he explains why the data collected will be invaluable, and how they’re ensuring this won’t be a “big brother” type surveillance situation."
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2012/03/spark-176-march-18-21-2012/
