By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State lawmakers have approved legislation setting up a trust fund for Georgia’s financially troubled trauma care hospitals.
One problem: Senate Bill 60 does not put any money in the trust. Other bills that would generate funds for the hospitals are still awaiting decisions in the General Assembly.
The legislation also would create a nine-member Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission to raise state and federal funds, grants and donations, and to distribute the money to the state’s trauma care hospitals. Businesses seeking start-up money to become trauma care centers also would be eligible for the funds.
State Rep. Larry O’Neal (R-Warner Robins), who carried the bill on the House floor, said the state’s network of trauma care hospitals needs $85 million at a minimum.
“We have a trauma system now that, if anything, is lessening in size and effectiveness, instead of growing in size and effectiveness,” O’Neal told the House moments before it approved the bill on a 158-1 vote. “It might be one of the most important pieces of legislation --- at least in my opinion --- that I have ever been involved with in my entire life.”
The bill already had passed the Senate and now is on its way to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s desk for his signature.
Georgia lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering several bills to raise money for the hospitals, including one that would require Georgians and tourists who rent a car for less than 30 days to pay a 3.5 percent surcharge. The money would go toward improving the state’s trauma care network. The Senate approved that measure Tuesday.
Georgia is in a “trauma care crisis” with two-thirds of Georgia’s 152 hospitals operating in the red, the Joint Comprehensive State Trauma Services Study Committee reported in January. The hospitals are suffering financial losses from uninsured or underinsured patients and decreasing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates. Georgia absorbs an estimated $170 million in uncompensated trauma care annually, according to the committee.
Outside metro Atlanta, most Georgians live far from trauma centers, and the long distances put victims of accidents and shootings at risk of dying before they can receive medical care.
With only 15 trauma care centers spread across the state, it can sometimes take hours for a trauma victim to reach one, the committee’s report said. The report says Georgia’s trauma death rate is 20 percent higher than the national average.
DeKalb Medical Center, losing millions of dollars overall in recent years, announced last month it is leaving Georgia’s trauma network. Hospital officials said DeKalb’s emergency room is already on trauma diversion status an average of 22 days a month, meaning that the hospital does not have staff available to provide adequate trauma care. That sends ambulance patients to other nearby hospitals.
“I just commend to you Senate Bill 60, which is a start,” O’Neal said. “It is vital that we get this commission set up.”