Senate Candidate Weighs in on Health Care Issues in the South Suburbs

Earlier this week, Local Voices writer and Prairie State Trustee Marc Wiley , pointing out perceived flaws in the way critical condition patients are handled.

Erin Roeper of the League of Women Voters .

"When paramedics have to transport a patient who needs the kind of help that is only available in a trauma center (as distinguished from an emergency room), they have to transport a very long distance,” Roeper said in a recent announcement. “They are losing people on the way to the trauma centers.”

This week, , said the medical care problems in the South Suburbs are her chief concern.

“I’ve been in healthcare for over 20 years,” Miller said. “I’ve seen where there are disparities in healthcare, access to service and treatment options.”

Miller touted her background as proof she would address the most important needs in healthcare, and went beyond the need for a trauma center in pointing out the problems of the South Suburbs.

“Chicagoland, which included the Southland, had the No. 1 deaths due to asthma,” She added. “That’s because of access to care, people not having the proper medication, and using the emergency room as their primary care physician.”

A blaring example of the disparities all these individuals are pointing out was the highly publicized case of Aaron Pointer, who was transferred to multiple facilities before dying of asthma-related complications.

in Chicago Heights as another example of why there should be a trauma center much closer than Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, where many people in critical condition have been airlifted to.

St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields was once a trauma center, but no longer holds that status.

"I just think that we need to open up our minds and open up our voices to make sure people know about the options that are available to them and that we demand those types of services in the Southland," Miller said.

What do you think? Should the state, municipal and even federal governments be pooling funds to bring about the return of a trauma center farther south than Oak Lawn?