As Marginalized Communities Face Dearth of Trauma Care, Activists Step in to Fight for Survival

[marmar]

As Marginalized Communities Face Dearth of Trauma Care, Activists Step in to Fight for Survival

Tuesday, 21 July 2015 00:00
By Maya Dukmasova, Truthout | Report


[font size="1"]Led by Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY), protesters march for trauma care on Chicago's South side, February 23, 2013. (Photo: sarah-ji/Flickr)[/font]


Every year after schools lets out, gun violence spikes in American cities, resulting in hundreds of deaths and life-altering injuries. Whether the victim is a young person, who has become trapped in a cycle of violence by a lack of opportunities, or an uninvolved bystander, urgent medical care in the moments after a shooting is often slow in arriving to poor communities of color. In Chicago and across the country, community members are fighting back against this health-care inequity, even at great personal risk.

On the first Wednesday in June, nine Chicago activists were arrested for occupying an administration building at the University of Chicago during an annual alumni reunion. They demanded to meet with Rob Zimmer, the president of the university, to discuss the lack of a Level 1 trauma center on the South Side, as hundreds of big donors were poised to arrive on campus. Two and a half hours later, firefighters cut a hole through the wall and the nine were detained by university police. In the previous month, nine other demonstrators for a South Side trauma center had been arrested during a march on Michigan Avenue.

Currently, all four of Chicago's adult trauma centers are located on the North and West sides of the city, leaving almost a fifth of city residents and large swaths of the South Side without a trauma center within a 5-mile radius. A 2013 Chicago-based study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that mortality rates among victims who suffered gunshot wounds are higher if an ambulance has to travel more than 5 miles to reach a Level 1 trauma center. Such "trauma deserts" surround the University of Chicago's state-of-the-art medical center.

The community surrounding the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus also has one of the highest shooting rates in Chicago, where the consequences of the lack of a Level 1 adult trauma center are acutely felt every year. ...............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31919-from-chicago-to-oakland-trauma-care-activists-fight-for-survival

[marym625]

1. It's really horrible

That the south side is lacking a trauma one center. I have seen so many times when people are taken to Indiana or Ingalls in Harvey because there's nothing close to where the victim was hurt

[mwooldri]

2. The woes of market driven healthcare.

I can't remember where I read it but the target time for an ambulance to get to the hospital in rural England is 45 minutes. Hospital facilities are provided with this travel time in mind.

In any case I thought the affordable care act introduced many "new customers" to the "market place", many with low incomes and wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford an emergency room visit. Either the market place hasn't recognized this "new opportunity" or have still decided that it's not worthwhile to build new emergency facilities in underserved areas.