Wheelchair customers in Alabama, Massachusetts, Michigan and Texas are once more assured entry to higher-quality medical care, because of elevated funding for Spinal Twine Harm Mannequin Techniques.
United Spinal Affiliation’s coverage and advocacy work and the sustained efforts of members throughout the nation helped persuade Congress to approve a $2 million finances enhance particularly designated for funding further mannequin facilities, in addition to elevated funds for the mannequin methods program as an entire.
Spinal Twine Harm Mannequin Techniques are sponsored in an element by the Nationwide Institute on Incapacity, Unbiased Residing, and Rehabilitation Analysis. They’re “nationwide leaders in medical analysis and affected person care and supply the very best degree of complete specialty providers, from the purpose of harm by way of rehabilitation and re-entry into full neighborhood life,” based on the mannequin methods web site.
The additions to the community are:
Including these facilities — which had been all a part of the mannequin methods community earlier than shedding funding lately — brings the entire variety of mannequin methods again as much as 18. Advocates like Steve Lieberman, United Spinal’s director of advocacy and coverage, say that the funding enhance was a major win, nevertheless it’s not practically sufficient.
“Again within the early 2000s, there have been round 200,000 folks with spinal twine accidents within the U.S., and now there are greater than 300,000. However funding for mannequin methods has stayed stagnant — it hasn’t saved up with inflation or with the elevated variety of folks with SCI. In truth, there are entire areas of the nation, just like the Pacific Northwest, that lack a single SCI mannequin heart.”
Extra advocacy is required on this vital problem. Click on right here to induce Congress to approve elevated funding to assist restore important applications for our neighborhood throughout the nation.
