Students and Hospital Staff Hold Open Forum on Trauma Care

On November 10, Fearless Leading Youth (FLY) teamed up with Students for Health Equality (SHE) and Medical Center staff to discuss the University’s lack of a trauma center. The forum resulted from a year-long campaign by FLY following the death of 18-year-old Damian Turner.
 
Turner was shot at the crossing of 61st and Cottage Grove on August 14^th, 2010. As no trauma centers existed on the South Side, he was rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Since the shooting, Turner’s death has served as FLY’s main argument for a trauma center in South Side Chicago.
 
Because of its resources and location, the University faces great pressure to open a trauma center on its grounds. While the University did build one in 1986, it was shut down in 1988 to make way for other medical treatment units and services. Since then, the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) boasts the only burn unit in the South Side, an efficient neonatal intensive care unit, and a trauma unit for children but no level-one trauma center.
 
In fact, the nearest level-one trauma center is located ten miles from the South Side at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the same hospital Turner was rushed to before his death. While a WPEZ 91.5 report states that the median transport time to a trauma center from the South Side is 15 minutes, there have been cases where patients have taken 40 minutes to arrive. The longer travel time has upped local South Side residents’ determination to have a trauma center opened in the South Side, with the University as the center of debate.
 
The forum featured Dr. Donald Liu, Director of the Pediatric Center and Dr. Stephen Webber, the UCMC’s Current Chief Financial Officer. Representing FLY was Darius Lightfoot and Vanessa Morris-Moore while SHE sent students Michael McCown and Akshaya Kannan. Both sides began with their own opening statements about the issue before diving into a Q&A session with written questions by the audience.
 
Emergency response times and financial costs aside, the University’s relations with its surrounding community were also intensively examined. For many residents, the absence of a trauma center in the area can be linked to racial and socioeconomic inequities that separate North from South. Consequently, the debate also addressed the University’s role as a part of the South Side community rather than a research institution.
 
While it’s still unclear if a trauma center will be built, the forum was seen as an essential first step in that direction. FLY and SHE have pledged to continue fighting for a level-one trauma center, hoping to cooperate with the UCMC along the way.