Feb. 23 has been designated "Trauma Day" at the state Capitol, to heighten the awareness of Georgia's desperate need for a better statewide trauma care network.

In truth, every day should be Trauma Day during this legislative session until this crisis is solved.

It's that important. It's that life-threatening.

If you're in a car crash, if you accidentally fall or get burned, if you suffer a bullet wound -- all these tragedies require trauma care, and Georgia isn't delivering near enough of it. The state has more than 150 acute-care hospitals, but only a paltry 15 of them are designated trauma centers.

Worse yet, those centers are clustered in and around larger cities, meaning the vast rural areas of south Georgia are without nearby trauma care.

Put it this way: By one estimate, if you're in a serious auto accident in south Georgia, you're four times more likely to die because you can't receive crucial trauma care within the "golden hour" -- the 60 minutes immediately after sustaining a life-threatening injury.

Something must be done to repair the state's sparse and badly underfunded trauma network. Our lawmakers know this, but year after year action on this becomes stalled. It's looking that way again this year -- and legislators need to change that course immediately.

What's required right now is at least $80 million a year merely to stabilize the trauma network. But to grow the network -- doubling the number of trauma centers, for starters -- would require closer to $110 million.

There are several bills being batted around committees right now.

H.B. 148 would add a $10 vehicle registration fee on all passenger vehicles. H.B. 160 would levy fines under a proposed "super speeder" bill aimed at lead-footed motorists -- which makes sense, considering it's these speed demons who too often are responsible for the accidents that require trauma care.

Two other bills call for imposing fees on telephone subscribers. Another suggests slapping a $1 tax on all tobacco products. Yet another proposes to redirect the quarter-mill state property tax. Another House resolution floats the idea of a constitutional amendment that would dedicate revenue from ad valorem tax to the purpose of funding trauma care.

Some of those bills, though, may face tough sledding in the Senate, where Lt. Gov Casey Cagle takes a dim view of new taxes or fees. But at least redirecting the property tax monies wouldn't require a tax hike.

The money has to come from somewhere because running a trauma center is a financially losing proposition for hospitals, owing largely to the number of indigent patients who take advantage of this emergency care. In Augusta, the trauma center at Medical College of Georgia Hospital hemorrhaged more than $11 million last year to pay for unrecovered trauma care costs. And if it wasn't for a $58 million Band-Aid bestowed on trauma care by the General Assembly last year, one or two Georgia hospitals very well could have closed down their trauma centers altogether.

Trauma is the No. 1 cause of death among Americans ages 1 to 44. In Georgia, these deaths occurs at a rate 20 times higher than the national average.

If our state had the trauma care its citizens deserve, an estimated 700 more lives could be saved each year.

That's the life-or-death situation our lawmakers face under the Gold Dome this session. The very lives of their constituents hang in the balance.

Proper funding must be found for Georgia's ailing trauma care network -- now.