A Misguided Effort at Patient Privacy

To the Editor:

The Department of Health and Human Services’ proposals on protecting patients’ privacy (“Health-Care Groups Fear Privacy Proposals Could Curtail Their Fund-Raising Efforts,” February 10), look like another great government plan to just help you. The problem is defining “you.”

It is no surprise that hospitals in general — and small hospitals in particular — are struggling to survive.

Government programs and the power-hungry bureaucracy will not leave well enough alone. The rules must change daily.

If patients of rural hospitals don’t care about what is going on at that hospital, who does? The government, perhaps.

Our hospital started a foundation in 1997 in an effort to save the hospital from financial collapse. We use the name and address of our patients on our mailing list for the foundation newsletter, which informs readers about new services at the hospital and provides those who are interested a vehicle through which to make donations. We do not sell, give, or otherwise distribute names of our patients or of the donors.

I would urge the Department of Health and Human Services to stop trying to position the federal government to take over health care in our country. If patients don’t care about the survival of their health-care provider, who will? Not everyone in our community has the money or the time to drive 40 miles to obtain care that could be provided nearer to home.

E. Lamont Davis
Executive Director
Newberry County Hospital Foundation
Newberry, S.C.