Mississippi's only burn center to close Oct. 14. Burn victims to be sent to other states
Mississippi’s only burn center, which is located at Merit Health Central in South Jackson, is scheduled to be closed Oct. 14, the hospital has confirmed.
Currently, the JMS Burn and Reconstruction Center cares for both adult and pediatric burn patients on both an inpatient and outpatient basis. Pediatric patients account for nearly one-third of total inpatient burn cases. The center includes 13 burn intensive care patient rooms, 20 burn step down unit patient rooms and a 12-room outpatient clinic. We offer specialized, unique resources needed for treating burn patients.
After Oct. 14, burn patients will be redirected to Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, Firefighters Burn Center - Regional One Health in Memphis, Tennessee, or USA Health in Mobile, Alabama.
A statement from the hospital reads, "The complex medical needs of burn patients require support from a broad range of specialists — ones you typically associate with burn programs, such as plastic surgery, and others you may not typically think of, like gastroenterology, ophthalmology, and urology. The COVID-19 pandemic and the challenging staffing and recruitment environment have made it increasingly difficult for us to recruit the breadth of specialists needed to maintain the burn program, which is the primary reason why we’ve made the difficult decision to close the Burn Center effective October 14, 2022.
"Burn services, which include Burn Surgery, ICU and Stepdown, and the Burn & Hand Rehabilitative Services Clinic, will cease operations at that time. The burn clinic will continue to provide care to those current patients until they are transitioned to other appropriate physician practices.
"We recognize the importance of burn services to the community and region, and we have been in discussions with other regional providers to explore the possibility of them establishing a burn program. We are grateful to have been able to meet the burn and reconstructive needs of patients from our state and from across the region for the past 14 years."
The burn center has had many problems in the last 20 years. The Mississippi Firefighters Burn Center resided in Greenville at Delta Regional Medical Center for 33 years until 2005 when it closed because of a lack of funding and staffing. After that, severe burn victims were flown to Augusta, Ga.
In 2009, a burn center opened in Brandon, followed by the opening of the burn center in Jackson.
Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi's only burn center at Merit Health Center to close Oct. 14
