Seattle-based Harborview Medical Center, trauma centers facing crisis

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 27, 2009

Doctors at Seattle-based Harborview Medical Center call it an epidemic: more young adults are dying from trauma injuries than AIDS and stroke combined. But with all the charity care and the economic recession, trauma centers around the country, including Harborview, are now suffering themselves. In the past eight years, 20 hospitals have closed their trauma centers because they cannot afford the cost of specialized and often charity care.