On the April 13th edition of Midday Maryland, host, Elsa M, talked with Dr. Thomas Scalea, physician in chief at R Adams Cowely Shock Trauma Center, and James Gannon, a RN at Sinai Life Bridge Health, about the increasing violence and crimes in Baltimore and in Maryland.
COVID isn’t the only problem that trauma centers are facing, they’re also facing an increased amount of violence. The amount of violence shown shows no signs of abetting. In the last 5 years, Maryland is tracking to be #2 behind the 2016 numbers. At the beginning of COVID, interpersonal violence went down for a very short time, but are now back up and passing the previous numbers.
Trauma centers are seeing all kinds of violence. Youth are strongly affected by this violence. The emotional toll on health care workers is hard. Victims are often young individuals and telling the victim’s family that their son, daughter, brother, sister, cousin, or grandchild, is not coming home is very heartbreaking.
Most of the Maryland Trauma Centers have violence intervention programs and groups. Often their programs are too late as the victims are in the hospital. These programs are helping the victims after the fact. The Maryland Trauma Centers are “looking at the communities across the state to come together and say, ‘enough is an enough’.” – James Gannon, RN
“We are chipping away at an epidemic and we’re not making a hell of a lot of progress. ” – Dr. Thomas Scalea
Click here for a list of Trauma Centers Violence Intervention Programs.
Click here to read the Midday Maryland Story.
