2015 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 217
BY SENATOR DORSEY-COLOMB
A RESOLUTION
To commend the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center on a tradition of providing
expert burn care for all ages.
WHEREAS, receiving proper care after a severe burn can mean the difference
between life and death and in some cases, patients who receive immediate care have a
ninety-four percent survival rate; and
WHEREAS, the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center was established in
1970 and is one of only one hundred twenty-five specialized burn centers in the United
States; and
WHEREAS, it is the first designated burn facility in Louisiana and the fourteenth
such facility nationwide; and
WHEREAS, it provides burn treatment services for the entire Gulf Coast region and
petrochemical corridor and is the only comprehensive and pediatric burn treatment facility
in central and south Louisiana, and the state of Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center has received referrals
from over one hundred twenty-five hospitals across Louisiana and Mississippi in the last
year and treats more than two hundred zip codes across the Gulf Coast region; and
WHEREAS, more than ninety percent of all inpatient burn victims in the greater
Baton Rouge area are treated annually, and the center has provided more than six thousand
treatments over the last three years for those suffering from flame, scald, electrical,
chemical, and other burn-related injuries; and
WHEREAS, the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center provides
comprehensive inpatient and outpatient burn treatment and rehabilitation for adults and
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children, including occupational and physical therapy; and
WHEREAS, a multi-disciplinary team of burn experts with over seventy years of
physician experience in burn care comprise the medical professionals at the center; and
WHEREAS, research is currently being conducted on a new skin grafting treatment
to assist with decreasing length of stay, hospital costs, and scarring; and
WHEREAS, the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center's commitment to the
community extends beyond the hospital walls by offering support groups, counseling, and
educational resources; and
WHEREAS, the center sends an average of twenty local pediatric burn survivors
each year to the statewide summer burn camp, "I'm Still Me", and its nurses and staff
volunteer to assist with coordination and staffing of the camp each year; and
WHEREAS, the camp provides an opportunity for children who have survived the
physical and emotional trauma of burn injuries to interact with other survivors to aid in
building self-esteem and to support emotional healing; and
WHEREAS, the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn Center also hosts an annual
survivor's banquet to reunite burn patients and the staff in celebration of their survivorship;
and
WHEREAS, the education provided by the Baton Rouge General's Regional Burn
Center team of experts to the public regarding burn safety, as well as its partnership with
area chemical plants to enhance accident prevention and safety programs, has resulted in a
dramatic decrease in chemical-related burn injuries; and
WHEREAS, the team was recently published in the Journal of Burn Care &
Research for their clinical research with a state-of-the-art skin grafting treatment for large
burns, and they have received international recognition for the critical care provided to the
burn patients from the Philippines who were injured in the November 2012 oil rig explosion
in the Gulf of Mexico; and
WHEREAS, the medical expertise rendered by the Baton Rouge General's Regional
Burn Center team to victims of burn-related injuries plays a vital role in affording medical
students, residents, and ancillary staff valuable clinical training in critical care, burn
treatment, and rehabilitation in Louisiana, Mississippi, and across the United States.
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THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby commend the regional burn center in the state, the Baton Rouge General's
Regional Burn Center, on the compassionate and expert care it provides to adults and
children in Baton Rouge, the Gulf Coast region, and the United States of America.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
president and chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Mark F.
Slyter.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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