Over the last ten years, I have spent a large part of my medical career attempting to identify innovative ways to improve care for violent trauma patients.
Many are crime victims. I specifically focus on interrupting cycles of violence in individuals and communities by providing targeted care and multi-disciplinary interventions to both patients and at-risk individuals. Importantly, this provides lessons to change how we care for incarcerated individuals like those at Rikers Island.
Short staffing at Rikers has led to many individuals missing their medical appointments, as no one can see a doctor without an accompanying correction officer. In 2021, an individual missed 26 medical appointments over seven months before committing suicide. As the medical director of S.U.V., I have seen first-hand how our multi-disciplinary community and hospital-based approach to violence prevention significantly lowered rates of re-injury and recidivism in admitted violent trauma patients. We employ individuals from the community who are credible messengers, some of whom may have themselves been incarcerated, and provide them with an opportunity to be instruments of positive change.
But we should not stop there. Programs like S.U.V. must be part of a long-term, multi-faceted approach to increase access to care and improve outcomes. We need to transition as soon as possible from the sprawling, dysfunctional jail complex on Rikers to a more modern borough-based system to better meet the socio-emotional and medical needs of those held there.
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