April 28, 2018

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Sports April 28, 2018

Saturday Sports: LeBron, Golden State Warriors And Condoleezza Rice

ESPN’s Howard Bryant joins Scott Simon to talk about the biggest sports stories of the week.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time for sports.

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SIMON: Condoleezza Rice. That’s not a name we usually hear against this music. Condoleezza Rice tries to clean up college basketball. The Indiana Pacers clean the clock on the Cavaliers as the NBA playoffs go on and on, still just in the opening round. ESPN’s Howard Bryant joins us. Good morning, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT: Hey, Scott. Good morning.

SIMON: I wanted to spend all our time talking about the Browns’ great clutch shot for all the time today, but let’s note the Pacers defeated the Cavs last night by 34 points – yow (ph). Game 7 tomorrow. What do you foresee?

BRYANT: Well, I foresee a very difficult game for the Cavaliers. I think that we take LeBron James for granted because there are some people, Scott, who are simply so good that you don’t really appreciate how good they are. Look at what he’s done with a team that’s not very good. Let’s not forget that this team wasn’t even the team they started the season with.

They expected to start the season with Kyrie Irving, and he ended up in Boston. And then they ended up making a huge trade in midseason, and so to still be in a seventh game – he’s been to the finals seven straight years. He’s trying to go eight years in a row. No one’s ever done that. Bill Russell went 10 years in a row. He’s the only one to ever do anything even close to this. And so LeBron James is just such a phenomenal player.

And even last night’s game, for example, with Utah in Oklahoma City. You saw what happened with the Utah Jazz eliminating Oklahoma City, and so they’re out.

They tried to do this three-headed monster with Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook and Paul George, and to duplicate the same thing that LeBron did with Dwyane Wade in Miami with Chris Bosh, and it just shows you how difficult it is to get those superstars on the same page. They couldn’t do it. And yet, LeBron takes everybody – any team LeBron plays on is a championship contender, no matter how good or bad they are.

SIMON: Yeah. I just want to take a moment to contemplate on his blocked shot and 3-point shot at the buzzer on Wednesday. OK, we’ve done it. Golden State – can’t take the Pelicans for granted, can they?

BRYANT: No, they can’t because you’ve got Anthony Davis, who’s a terrific player. And once again, Golden State – they’ve been able to turn it on whenever they’ve wanted to. They’ve been the best team the last three seasons. And going for another championship – I still think they’re the best team. I still will believe somebody can beat them four times when I actually see it. But let’s not forget, they’re a very good team, New Orleans, and also Houston as well. Let’s not forget them.

SIMON: What do you take away from the recommendations the Condoleezza Rice Commission made about college basketball?

BRYANT: I think that they need a plow to clean up college basketball, and they – and this was a dust broom. It really was. It’s not nearly enough. They talked about some of the one-and-done rules. They talked about recommendations.

You’ve got an economic problem here – that the players need to be compensated at some level. They did not even address that in any way because that would completely upset the apple cart, so they have a long way to go. But unless you’re going to deal with compensating these players, you’re not really going to get anything done.

SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much.

BRYANT: Thank you.

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Health April 28, 2018

After Push From Activists, Chicago's South Side Gets An Adult Trauma Center

The Level 1 adult trauma center will officially launch on May 1.


Rob Hart/Courtesy of University of Chicago Medicine
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Rob Hart/Courtesy of University of Chicago Medicine

In 2010, 18-year-old Damian Turner was shot in the South Side of Chicago, just a few blocks away from the world-class University of Chicago hospital. But the ambulance that arrived to help him couldn’t take him there, because the hospital didn’t have an Level 1 adult trauma center.

Instead, it drove the gravely injured Turner nine miles to Northwestern University hospital, where he died from his wounds.

Turner’s death mobilized South Side young black activists. For years, they demanded that the University of Chicago reopen an adult trauma center that had closed in 1988 after losing millions of dollars each year treating patients without health insurance.

After years of resistance, the university is reopening its adult trauma center on May 1 — a decision that will provide the South Side with more accessible trauma care.

“There are a lot of trauma-related deaths because gun violence is such a prevalent issue on the South Side. It was then it is now. It has been for decades,” said activist Veronica Morris-Moore.“A lack of a trauma center was a severe indication of the institutional racism that existed on the South Side. And the reason it was worth our time as young people was because we were losing friends.”

Veronica Morris-Moore stands outside the adult emergency room at the University of Chicago Medical Center in Feb. 2013. Morris-Moore was one of many activists pressuring the medical center to reopen an adult trauma center it closed in the 1980s.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

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Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Research backs Morris-Moore up: If you are shot more than five miles from a trauma center in Chicago, your likelihood of dying is 21 percent greater.

The university’s effort to reopen the center received a boost in 2015 when it made a bid for the Obama Presidential Center. That year, in an about face, the university said it would again open a trauma center.

Trauma care is costly complex web of care treatment lots of specially trained surgeons and nurses who treat penetrating wounds — from car crashes, stabbings to serious falls to gunshots. New staff have been hired, a new emergency room in the hospital opened in December and the state public health department approved trauma care earlier this month.

The new center’s head, Dr. Selwyn Rogers, said he will also work with local groups on social services centered around violence in addition to providing care.

“We bring together the resources of the university, medical center and community partners so that we can be better able to address health disparities and the public health epidemic of intentional violence,” Rogers said.

One of those community partners is Julian DeShazier, the pastor of University Church, which is not affiliated with the university. Activists used this church as a meeting space when they were planning strategy.

“Once we got on board it took on another dimension. We began to talk about it from different angles in terms of faith, and use our resources and access to try to help their voices be heard more,” DeShazier said. “We were able to help mediate conversations between medical center executives and the organizers on the ground doing that work. That’s the kind of work churches can do when they’re really rooted inside of a community.”

The hospital estimates the trauma care will cost $48 million a year. While trauma injuries are unpredictable, officials say the new trauma unit could treat up to 4,000 patients yearly starting next Tuesday.

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