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April 23, 2006
Temporary Trauma Center Opening
From the Times-Picayune: Charity to open interim trauma center
While this is certainly a sign of life, it is still disordered. My wife originally worked at the Elmwood facility's rehabilitation clinic. It's about fifteen or twenty minutes drive from downtown and nowhere near to be equiped as the long-term trauma service. There isn't enough parking and the facilities don't approach the capacity necessary to support the specialists a Level One Trauma Center has. As I recall it's a brick building about four stories tall and each floor is maybe the size of two or three three-bedroom ranch houses, so maybe 20,000 square feet. They don't even have the space for the imaging machines. If strokes and broken bones don't qualify, then this is surely not an emergency department. This is no joke trauma only.
The Elmwood site will not be the new Charity emergency department, Fontenot said, cautioning that the public should not consider it an option for routine injuries. The trauma center takes only seriously injured patients such as those with multiple fractures, gunshot wounds or heavy internal bleeding.People with lesser trauma such as chest pain, strokes, broken limbs, cuts and other health concerns will still be directed to other local hospitals or Charity's temporary clinic at the former Lord & Taylor department store in the New Orleans Centre at 1400 Poydras St., Fontenot said.
Posted by Niels Olson at April 23, 2006 2:50 PM
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