Local & State Headlines

Group wants trauma funds

• A public outreach campaign seeks permanent funding for a statewide trauma network.

Susan McCord

TIFTON — The Georgia Statewide Trauma Action Team hopes the third time is the charm for an adequately funded and structured statewide trauma network.

“We got taken to the altar last year, we were about to seal the deal and get hitched for life, but we were jilted at the altar,” said Don Faulk, CEO of the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon.

MCCG is one of only 13 designated trauma centers in the state, and the nearest center to Albany is at Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville.

Since 2006, when the Georgia General Assembly created a trauma services commission to study the adequacy of trauma care around the state, the team has struggled during two legislative sessions to obtain a permanent source of funding.

During the 2008 session, a measure to permanently fund the trauma network through a $10 car tag fee failed, but did receive a one-year appropriation.

“I will be forever grateful for the $58 million kiss,” Faulk said. “We’ve got to get hitched this year.”

Becoming a state-designated trauma center — providing care for the seriously injured, typically from auto collisions or falls — “wasn’t necessarily a popular thing” when MCCG went through the process, Faulk said.

“Most of those patients are already there; the question is, how are you going to handle them, and ... if it’s beyond this community, how do you get to the next community in an expedient fashion?”

As the 2009 session approaches, the effort “needs some additional motivation,” said Dr. Dennis Ashley, chair of the Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission.

A $398,000 grant from Healthcare Georgia Foundation is funding a public outreach campaign that launched last week with joint meetings in Atlanta and Tifton.

At the outreach effort’s Web site, www.georgiaitsabouttime.com, the public can learn how far they live from a trauma center, and identify their elected representative to contact.

A map reveals a wide swath of South Georgia outside the “golden hour” during which an injured patient needs to reach a trauma center.

“It would appear that you have no access to trauma care in those areas,” said Dr. Doug Patten, Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

“The reality is that hospitals throughout the state are providing trauma care,” including 570 cases treated at Phoebe in 2006, he said.

In Georgia the level of care available varies widely by county, from EMS to the availability of specialties such as neurosurgery, Patten said.

“If you’ve seen one EMS agency, you’ve seen one EMS agency,” said Courtney Terwilliger, President of the Georgia Association of Emergency Medical Services.

“Somehow in the state of Georgia we think it’s important to have a statewide network of highly trained, well-paid people to pass out speeding tickets, but we don’t see that in terms of medical care for injured patients,” Patten said.