Is Health Care to Blame?
A lot of passion and research was put into David Goldhill’s article “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” published by The Atlantic in September 2009. Goldhill delves himself deep into what he believes is the root cause behind his father’s unnecessary death, modern American health care. Although we are the ones receiving the care from hospitals or health care facilities, we are not the consumer, insurance companies are (1). We are a figure to these corporations, not a patient. The author’s year long obsessive hunt helps us see what American health care is doing wrong and that we do in fact have an alternative.
The inspiration for this article came to Goldhill two years before when his 83 year old working father was admitted to a well-regarded hospital in New York City for pneumonia (1). A hospital borne infection took advantage of his weak immune system and after more than 5 weeks in the ICU became one of the 100,000 Americans who are killed by infections picked up in a hospital (2). Startlingly, this number is more than double the people killed in car crashes and five times the number killed in homicides (2).While attempting to cope with his sick father, the author noticed the hospitals extremely lacking customer service skills, cheerless and uncomfortable rooms, over flowing trash cans in patients’ rooms, and constantly changing and of rotating staff (2). The local McDonalds has more of a warm welcoming feel than hospitals today, better food, and many less unnecessary deaths.
An article published in The New Yorker a week after the death of Goldhill’s father really shined a bright light on this health care problem. The article profiled the efforts of Dr. Peter Pronovost to reduce the incidence of fatal hospital-borne infections (qtd in Goldhill 2). Pronovost compiled a simple check list of ICU protocols explaining hand washing and other sterilization procedures (qtd in GH 2). Hospitals who adopted... [continues]
A lot of passion and research was put into David Goldhill’s article “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” published by The Atlantic in September 2009. Goldhill delves himself deep into what he believes is the root cause behind his father’s unnecessary death, modern American health care. Although we are the ones receiving the care from hospitals or health care facilities, we are not the consumer, insurance companies are (1). We are a figure to these corporations, not a patient. The author’s year long obsessive hunt helps us see what American health care is doing wrong and that we do in fact have an alternative.
The inspiration for this article came to Goldhill two years before when his 83 year old working father was admitted to a well-regarded hospital in New York City for pneumonia (1). A hospital borne infection took advantage of his weak immune system and after more than 5 weeks in the ICU became one of the 100,000 Americans who are killed by infections picked up in a hospital (2). Startlingly, this number is more than double the people killed in car crashes and five times the number killed in homicides (2).While attempting to cope with his sick father, the author noticed the hospitals extremely lacking customer service skills, cheerless and uncomfortable rooms, over flowing trash cans in patients’ rooms, and constantly changing and of rotating staff (2). The local McDonalds has more of a warm welcoming feel than hospitals today, better food, and many less unnecessary deaths.
An article published in The New Yorker a week after the death of Goldhill’s father really shined a bright light on this health care problem. The article profiled the efforts of Dr. Peter Pronovost to reduce the incidence of fatal hospital-borne infections (qtd in Goldhill 2). Pronovost compiled a simple check list of ICU protocols explaining hand washing and other sterilization procedures (qtd in GH 2). Hospitals who adopted... [continues]
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