San Joaquin County's Only Trauma Center Still Has To Turn Away Patients
STOCKTON (CBS13) — The only trauma center in San Joaquin County is still having to turn away major medical trauma patients after being temporarily restricted to accept such cases
For the past month, AMR, the county's ambulance service, has had to travel far distances to transport trauma patients to hospitals outside the county. AMR says this puts a strain on meeting response time goals in some parts of the county.
"It's extremely stressful to travel long distance for trauma patients and then return back," said AMR communication director, Jason Sorrick.
While San Joaquin General Hospital sees some trauma patients, the most severe cases are being sent to four hospitals outside the county, as far as Modesto and south Sacramento.
"The time that our crews are with a trauma patient has doubled," said Sorrick.
In the past month AMR says a total of 114 major trauma patients had to be transported to the following hospitals:
- Doctors Medical Center of Modesto-- 38
- Kaiser Permanente in South Sacramento --38
- Modesto Memorial Medical Center-- 29
- UC Davis Medical Center --9
"They could be sent to South Sacramento and depending on the time a day it could be 20 or 30 or 40 minutes," said Sorrick.
Add in the time for the return trip and traffic, AMR says it's watched its response time goals suffer which is bad for Stockton emergency patients.
"That's where were saying the problem is with our ability to respond to our other emergencies because were depleting resources, by going out of county," said Sorrick. "We're trying to address that by staffing up and adding more personnel."
Kaiser Permanente could not release the number of San Joaquin County patients redirected to their hospital but say they "..continue to monitor the impact of the revised trauma destinations for San Joaquin County residents ..."'
Meanwhile San Joaquin General Hospital was found to be out of compliance with several staffing requirements by the county's emergency medical agency.
In the last few weeks they've added for full-time board-certified trauma surgeons, 16 nurses and some part-time physicians.
Stockton resident Quincy McBrewer and AMR say getting the trauma center fully operational again and soon is critical.
"Twenty minutes can make a difference as opposed to traveling this far and with Stockton crime they don't have that long to get help," said McBrewer.
EMS will be meeting with the new trauma center medical director on Tuesday to review the progress. Depending on how the meeting goes, the county is hopeful that the trauma center will be fully operational soon.
