OPINION: I lost my daughter because of profit-driven medicine

More than a decade ago my daughter became a victim of the negligent practice of medicine inside corporate structures seeking to maximize profits over patient safety. I couldn’t protect her because I didn’t fully understand the financial incentives driving their decision making. The hospital was incentivized to keep C-section rates low because it allowed them to meet quality standards set by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services which in turn lead to significant financial incentives.

Had my wife been given quicker access to the C-section she needed, my daughter would still be alive. Tragically, at least 21 more children have unnecessarily lost their lives or been gravely injured at the same hospital since her death for the same reasons.

When this tragedy fell upon our family I sought out an attorney for only one reason and that was to ensure this would never happen to another family. Why is it that a decade later nothing has changed? When my daughter passed away it was very hard to find an attorney willing to take a case regardless of its strength because the ability to recuperate sufficient damages was severely limited. In 2021, I engaged in the legislative process to tell my story. I assumed that if lawmakers understood the tragedies befalling families at the hands of profit-driven medicine they would act. And they did act. There were reforms made to improve the access to justice for families. The accountability mechanisms necessary to improve patient safety were laid.

Less than five years later I was recently invited to attend a meeting at the Governor's Office seeking to bring stakeholders together to “fix” the medical malpractice problem. However, to my true disappointment the entire conversation revolved around ways to limit and reduce lawsuits for malpractice, not to actually fix the prevalence and severity of the malpractice itself. Behind almost every malpractice case is a true and horrible tragedy.

The reforms are working, but profit-driven medicine doesn’t want to actually improve patient safety. Most of the conversations taking place today are not about the root problem, but rather how or if there should be accountability for it. With funding from these same health care corporations, so-called “think” tanks claim to have studied the issue and are attempting to inform the public narrative, but haven’t looked at the real issues or even bothered to talk to victims of malpractice or even acknowledge that indeed New Mexico does have an actual malpractice crisis not a litigation crisis.

Legislators, for the most part, have equally failed in their basic duties to protect us from bad actors. The governor claims to care about providing access to quality health care, but actually seems singularly focused on returning to a time of limited access to justice to make the “problem” go away and appease corporate executives.

Why are we OK with accepting a health care landscape dominated by profit with no mechanisms for real accountability? Since my daughter needlessly lost her life before it even fully began at least 21 more children at the same institution have suffered the same or similar fates with almost no accountability and no incentive to change. Somehow the governor’s “solution” is even less accountability? How many children is too many? If lawsuits seeking financial damages are not the solution, what is? When are we going to talk about holding wrongdoers accountable? I have not seen the governor, lawmakers or “think” tanks present a single solution that would have saved my child’s life and prevented 21 more babies from suffering the same or similar fates. We deserve better from our leaders.

Ezra Spitzer is a proud father and has called New Mexico home for more than 20 years.