-- In U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro's opinion, women should be able to decide whether they need a couple of days in the hospital to recover from breast-cancer surgery. Connecticut and 19 other states have agreed with her, making their own laws.
But the congresswoman has tried for 12 years to get attention for a bill that would make it a federal law, alleviating the state-by-state approach that has meant inconsistencies in treatment. Wednesday, that attention arrived.
An afternoon hearing in the health subcommittee of the House's energy and commerce committee was the first on her bill that was originally introduced in January 1997. As she stood outside the hearing room, she said, "No one's fate should be determined by their geography."
A member of Congress needs tenacity, she said. Then, as if it was hitting her again for the first time, she exclaimed: "Twelve years!"
Inside the hearing room, after a full day of dealing with other breast-cancer issues, the subcommittee started on DeLauro's bill. At the witness table were Connecticut's Dr. Kristen Zarfos and Alva Williams, a woman from North Carolina who had gone through what some call a "drive-through mastectomy" and endured a serious infection.
The issue: Insurance companies have required that women leave hospitals very soon after mastectomy or lumpectomy operations.
Zarfos, who specializes in breast-cancer surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital, has been a major voice in Connecticut's and -- through the years -- in DeLauro's attempts to establish patient protections. She said that in the 1990s insurance companies pulled back from coverage that once included overnight stays for surgical recovery. She also said the state-to-state solutions are flawed, omitting most states.
She told the subcommittee that, among those that have done something, "Most of the states have different wording of their laws, so some of them are effective, and some of them are not."
Williams recalled her experience from two years ago, in which she was sent right home from her surgery -- though her state is one of those with a protection law -- and she developed an infection that would cause a delay in the further treatment of her cancer. During that experience, she said, "For the first time in my life, I talked to God out loud."
She said: "My damage is done. But I want to help other women."
DeLauro is not on this committee, but she submitted testimony. The 3rd District congresswoman, who survived a bout with ovarian cancer, told the group that "adequate recovery time in the hospital should not be negotiable."
"The last thing any woman should be doing at that time is fighting with her insurance company," her testimony argued. The bill doesn't require a 48-hour stay if the patient doesn't want it, but it does leave the choice to the doctors and patients. "Not an insurance company."
Senior committee member Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said, "It shouldn't have had to take this long."
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