Editor:
With the recent news of the spread of infectious diseases caused by hospitals, I found that RI is one of 16 states to pass hospital infection reporting requirements. (Rhode Island (2006) Chapter 23-17.17-6) BUT we are one of two states that only report the information and not the rates. While it may be informative to know that our local hospitals have the problem, I think it is more important to know how big a problem each hospital has. The CDC estimates that every year two million patients get an infection while being treated in the hospital for something else and almost 100,000 of them die. Recently my sister-in-law died from one of these hospital diseases. For information on what we can do, check out the latest article on the subject at http://globalcrisis.info/index.html We can also ask Congressman Kennedy, to support HR1174, by Rep. Tim Murphy (PA), requiring public reporting of hospital-acquired infection rates.