Advocates lobby for more funds

ATLANTA --- There was no carnation for Pam Russell's daughter Monday, when more than 300 health professionals laid flowers at the Capitol steps as a memorial to the 700 Georgians they say died last year because the state's trauma-care network doesn't meet national averages.

When a car struck her on a Statesboro, Ga., highway as she drove to school, Charlee Russell was fortunate that her physician witnessed the accident and called for a helicopter to rush her to Memorial Hospital in Savannah within 60 minutes -- what experts call the "Golden Hour" for survival.

"If she had not been diagnosed and treated in the (Golden Hour), she truly would not be here," Pam Russell said.

Charlee, the granddaughter of legendary Georgia Southern University football coach Irk Russell, now attends the University of Georgia after fully recovering from her traumatic head injury and multiple bone fractures.

But too many Georgians die because their accidents occur nowhere near the 15 sophisticated trauma centers in the state's biggest cities.

"Our story had a happy ending. Many do not," Pam Russell told advocates for trauma-care funding. "Don't let another day go by when another family is at risk."

Bills pending in the House and Senate would use various methods to dedicate more funds to a coordinated, statewide trauma-care network. Some have passed one chamber or the other in recent years, but all have failed to become law.

Former State Sen. Mike Polak, now a lobbyist for Memorial Hospital, instructed the advocates to take their personal stories to legislators and to get a commitment to pass some funding measure this year despite the 1,200 other bills competing for attention.

"Your goal is to break through those bills and make this issue real," he said.

In Augusta, where the Medical College of Georgia has long been one of the state's four most advanced trauma centers, the way regular funding could help would be in developing a current inventory of smaller, feeder hospitals so that accident victims could be routed to the one with the available capacity and trained staff, said Regina Medeiros, a trauma coordinator at MCG.

Plus, she said, steady funding also would help boost morale where pay is low, hours are long and burnout is common.