GEORGIA LEGISLATURE: Support is slight for funding state trauma care network

Plans in the Legislature to create a statewide trauma care network this year could be headed for life support.

Although two proposals to raise money for trauma care have been introduced in the state House, key leaders in the Senate say there isn’t enough money available to provide a permanent fix to the state’s weak trauma care network.

“It’s tough times. It’s a tough sell,” said Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams (R-Lyons). “I’m not sure we can get it done this year.”

Williams said the two House plans “have little chance.”

“I don’t believe they’ll make it out of the House,” he said.

And Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville), who as chairman of the Rules Committee largely controls which bills come to the Senate floor for a vote, said the Senate will provide money for trauma care, but it probably won’t be a “separate stream” that would assure permanent funding in the future.

The two House plans do that.

One, introduced by Rep. Jim Cole (R-Forsyth) on behalf of Gov. Sonny Perdue, would fine “super-speeders” —- speeders caught driving more than 85 mph —- an extra $200.

If passed, the plan would generate about $23 million per year. Perdue first introduced that bill two years ago, but it died, partly because it would not generate the estimated $80 million supporters say is needed to create a permanent trauma network.

The other proposal, introduced by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) and Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), revived a plan similar to one backed by House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) that failed last year. It would charge a $10 fee on license tag renewals, a tax expected to raise about $80 million a year.

Last year, legislators appropriated $58.5 million for a trauma network, with no assurances that more would follow.

Now, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle says he’s not impressed with how those millions were spent.

“There was not one new trauma center as a result of that $60 million,” Cagle said.

Cagle, who presides over the Senate, says that before the Legislature creates long-term funding for trauma care, it needs to restructure the Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission, which oversees the system.

“We’ve got to get the model right,” Cagle said, referring to how hospitals will qualify for the trauma care money. “There’s no structure now,” he said.

But Dr. Dennis Ashley, trauma commission chairman, said the agency never intended to open new centers with its money. Instead, it worked to convince existing centers to remain open and remain part of the state network.

“Our primary goal was to prevent centers from closing,” Ashley said. “We were about to lose several of the trauma care centers we had.”

The governor’s office is working on a bill to restructure the commission, adding more direction on how to spend state money, and taking steps to avoid creating another bureaucracy by working with a state division that provides emergency services, Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon) said.

Supporters say improving trauma care services could save 600 lives a year in Georgia. But trauma care centers use expensive equipment and need neurosurgeons and thoracic surgeons on standby, which isn’t cheap. And serious trauma patients need to be within an hour’s travel of a center, proponents say.

Such quick treatment saved the life of Lawrence Manker Jr., 20, who visited the Legislature last week in an appeal for dollars for trauma care.

Manker, a student at the time, worked at the Imperial Sugar Co. refinery near Savannah, which was ripped apart in a fiery explosion last year.

He said he walked into work and “saw the fire coming towards me.” He said the next thing he knew it was six months later when he woke up in the hospital.

Manker was burned over 85 percent of his body in the explosion that killed a half-dozen people and injured dozens more. “I’m trying to get healed,” he said.

Dr. Fred Mullins of the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital in Augusta treated Manker and 17 more burn victims that day.

Without the expert trauma care provided by Savannah’s Memorial University Medical Center, “there would have been maybe one or two survivors,” Mullins said.