Relevant code here

Oh, but you were.

It sounds like the general idea here is to make a concerted effort to limit a patient's exposure to items and surfaces that could harbor potential pathogens. A table, for example, can be disinfected prior to any patient contact; flowers cannot.

This article suggests that Clostridium difficile spores (mentioned in TFA) can be found "on hospital items such as over-bed tables, side curtains, lab coats, scrubs, plants and cut flowers, computer keyboards (especially computers on wheels), bedpans, furniture, toilet seats, linens, telephones, stethoscopes, jewelry, diaper pails, and under fingernails."

As flowers can not be cleaned and disinfected as easily as the other surfaces mentioned, this seems like a reasonable preventative measure to me.

"Tell your doctor? Tell your doctor?.. Shouldn’t my doctor be telling me?.. When you tell your doctor, isn’t he just a dealer at that point?" -- Bill Maher