By LINDSAY WELBERS
Congressman Bobby Rush (D-1) introduced a bill that would allocate $100 million in federal money to create trauma care centers nationwide.
The Trauma Relief Access for Universal Medical Assistance (TRAUMA) Act would appropriate the money to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as a series of grants totaling $100 million given each year from 2014 through 2018.
“During a ten-year period, over 3,000 people from Chicago’s South Side had to travel more than 5 miles to a trauma center,” said Rush in a statement. Referring to a study released by the Indiana State Department, Rush said, “32,000 people were hospitalized in Indiana from motorcycle accidents, gunshot wounds, car accidents, and farm accidents and more than 3,700 died from their injuries. These studies emphasize the point that when a person suffers traumatic injury, their distance to a trauma center can spell the difference between life and death.”
Members of Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY) and Students for Health Equality (SHE) have said they support Rush’s bill.