Editorial: A welcome addition

Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

Emergency hospital service in the Las Vegas Valley will take a leap forward Monday when St. Rose Dominican Hospitals' Siena Campus opens its Level 3 trauma center. The nonprofit hospital is in Henderson, at St. Rose Parkway and Eastern Avenue. Its location means that ambulance crews in the southern and southeastern parts of the valley can shave invaluable minutes off their transport times.

For years University Medical Center on Charleston Boulevard near downtown Las Vegas had the valley's only trauma center, a Level 1 facility with a burn unit and research facilities that can receive all trauma victims, including those with the most critical injuries. In February, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, on Maryland Parkway, opened a Level 2 trauma center, which has specialists ready to treat serious injuries. At St. Rose's Level 3 center, most general surgeries can be performed but victims who need a specialist will have to be stabilized and then transferred.

St. Rose's spokesman, Andy North, said people with moderate injuries in the Henderson area sometimes had a 45-minute transport, when doctors agree that tending to victims within at least 30 minutes of their injuries is critical. The new center at St. Rose Siena is a welcome addition to the valley's health services.