Originally published August 28 2005
Basic treatment in hospitals is missing, New England Journal of Medicine reports
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Basic treatment is not available in hospitals in Connecticut, according to a recent report by the New England Journal of Medicine.
But dozens of patients at hospitals in Connecticut don't get that aspirin, or nine other crucial therapies for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia, a review of recently published hospital data shows.
Some hospitals are better than others, but none delivered all the treatments to eligible patients, in spite of their well-known benefit.
Last month, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that, although their performance had improved somewhat from 2002 to 2004, hospitals across the country were neglecting many lifesaving treatments.
The journal also reported on another study that found that hospitals around Boston and Oklahoma City performed better than those in other large regions, but that even in those places hundreds of patients did not receive basic therapies.
A review of the data by The New York Times showed that hospitals in Connecticut tended to perform better as a group than those in New York, but not as well as hospitals in Massachusetts.
Over all, Connecticut hospitals delivered appropriate treatment to heart attack victims 94 percent of the time, to heart failure patients 89 percent of the time and to pneumonia patients 79 percent of the time, all better than Manhattan hospitals.
"We really should be close to 100 percent on all of these measures," said Dr. Ashish Jha, a Boston doctor and author of one of the national studies published last month.
Besides aspirin for heart attack and antibiotics for pneumonia, the measures include beta blockers for heart attack, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors for heart failure and heart attack, and vaccinations for pneumonia.
Heart attack is an acute episode, usually requiring an emergency room visit, caused by constriction of flow in a coronary artery.
The state required hospitals to report their performance on these measures in 2003, six months before the federal program started.
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