In class we have been talking about neighborhoods that have zero to little and/or poor resources. In Legacy, Jack saw his younger brother die due to a gunshot wound. The film, specifically the death of Jack’s younger brother, kept reminding me of these different ongoing battles occurring in order to get more resources in different areas of Chicago. Interestingly enough, on the day we watched the movie, 9 activists created a human chain and blocked Michigan Avenue in order to demand a trauma center in the city’s South Side.
In a segment done by WBEZ, they state:
Car crashes, stabbings and gunshots are the most common wounds that require trauma care. Chicago is served by six trauma centers sprinkled around the city and nearby suburbs – but none is on the city’s South Side.
Activists say that the lack of trauma centers on the South Side of Chicago is due to a larger picture — the inequality that exists in health care. In May of 2014, the University of Chicago (U of C) announced of it’s plans to bring the “Barack Obama Presidential Library” to the South Side of Chicago.
Many have been outraged by U of C’s decision because they had closed down their medical center that offered trauma care in 1988. Trauma care that is often provided is also directed towards children and excludes many who are over seventeen.
A study conducted by Northwestern University professor, Marie Crandall, shows that “4,782 of those patients had been shot more than five miles from a trauma center and that those individuals had a lower rate of survival outcomes and were disproportionately black and uninsured.”
Many are targeting the University of Chicago because they not only because they and closed town their trauma center in ’88 but because they have the available funds to do so. Joe Cahill writes “with an endowment of about $7 billion, U of C could afford to subsidize a Level 1 adult trauma center. The same can't be said of other South Side hospitals.”
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150121/BLOGS10/150129973/heres-what-u-of-c-should-do-for-the-city
In a recent article, it states that “in January, an Illinois Department of Public Health report found that U of C Medicine had “sufficient resources” to open a Level I trauma center. No other Chicago hospitals that were part of the state agency's report did.”
When addressing the issue of trauma centers, community organizer Veronica Morris-Moore says: “What we need to do is address the root of the problem, the economic violence on a lot of these kids who don't have jobs or an education or even something to eat, and when they are victims of violence, they don't have access to the medical care they need. We need a trauma center here.”
From our weekly readings on Wilson, Massey and Denton, I came to understand that there are both racial and economic factors that play into inequality in urban areas. In an area, like the South Side, that has high levels of crime, there needs to be a trauma center in order to care for those who are affected by different wounds. Like Morris-Moore states, there is a root problem to the high crime rates in these different areas. The South Side is plagued by poor economic conditions and have fallen victims to a larger systematic issue — nonetheless, they deserve the right to have health care access close to home and they deserve to have a trauma center.
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