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EDITORIAL: Tallahassee Memorial Hospital's Plan to Re-Establish Trauma Center

Posted on: Monday, 11 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 10--There is good and bad news behind a plan by Tallahassee Memorial Hospital to re-establish a regional trauma center.

First, the good news: It's sorely needed.

Now, the bad news: It's sorely needed.

The primary and perhaps urgent reason that TMH is moving ahead with an operation whose start-up costs are estimated at $500,000 is that the Big Bend is a big risk for severely injured patients.

According to a University of South Florida report on trauma care throughout the state, four Big Bend counties in the Greater Tallahassee area - Jefferson, Wakulla, Gadsden and Leon - had the highest death rates in 2003 for those injured in car crashes (the most common cause of trauma) where there was no nearby trauma center.

It doesn't require a medical degree to understand why.

Trauma centers are highly specialized, expensive operations. The closest ones to the capital are at least 140 miles away. In life-and-death emergencies, longer distance equals time - and frequently lives - lost.

Tallahassee Memorial once maintained a trauma center, but closed it in 1989 for financial reasons. The USF report - which recommends new trauma centers here and in Bay County - prompted TMH to start planning a new trauma center.

Regional problem - and solution

But that's only the first step - and public officials throughout this region must not view this issue as someone else's problem.

It is commendable that TMH already has begun to confront the problem, but it can't be expected to shoulder all of the financial burden. Local and state governments - that is, the taxpayers - have to pitch in.

That means regional cooperation.

You've heard us use that phrase before, in different contexts. You'll hear it more in the future, because it's becoming increasingly important in several respects.

In virtually every case, growth is driving the need for regionalism - in transportation planning, environmental protection and now, obviously, health care.

For a story in last Sunday's Democrat, a TMH representative told Staff Writer Jeff Burlew that the hospital would seek financial help from local and state governments to run the new trauma center.

That's appropriate, since Big Bend citizens will benefit directly and since the state also has a vested interest in high-quality emergency care in regions throughout Florida.

Tallahassee City Commissioner Debbie Lightsey, who last month attended a conference on regionalism, said that one of the lessons she took home was that devising a regional strategy for growth management and making it work was extremely difficult.

No doubt that's correct. But in this case, regional cooperation is literally a matter of life and death.

We have to expect and demand that the leaders we elect are willing and able to rise above parochial interests when so much is on the line.

Trauma centers are highly specialized, expensive operations. The closest ones to the capital are at least 140 miles away. In life-and-death emergencies, longer distance equals time - and frequently lives - lost.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.

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Source: Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee, Fla.)

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