Meeting Public Comments

Scott Van Veldhuizen []

I am in favor of this bill. This bill was introduced in part because of the death of my son Reuben as the result of a procedure at an ambulatory surgery center in Iowa. As parents of a child entering a routine surgery we were unaware that if there were complications of any sort that the surgery center would not be equipped or staffed to handle such and my son had to be transported to a hospital by ambulance 20+ minutes away during rush hour traffic. Surgery centers are highly unregulated and are taking procedures away from local hospitals because the surgery centers tend to be less expensive. They are less expensive than hospitals because they don't have the necessary protocols, equipment and staff in place to handle sentinel events and offer the same level of emergency care when the need arises. Most patients or patient guardians are not aware of this when they make the decision to choose a surgery center for a procedure.