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Gunshot injury treatment costs billions each year
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8-16-99 Chicago. Taxpayers foot almost half the bill for treatment of gunshot injuries in the United States each year, and the bill is estimated to be in the billions, according to research released Aug. 4. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, put the medical cost for acute care and follow-up treatment of gunshot wounds at $2.3 billion in 1994. Government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and workers compensation covered $1.1 billion of that amount, said the study's lead author, Philip Cook, PhD, an economist from the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "We concluded from our research that gunshot injuries are everybody's problem. Even those of us who feel immune from being shot are sharing in the financial costs," Cook said. There were 134,445 gunshot injuries in the United States in 1994, with an average medical cost per injury of about $17,000. The researchers estimated lifetime costs of medical treatment per nonfatal hospitalized gunshot injury to be $35,367. Calculations were based on data from the federal government's injury databases and discharge data from hospitals in Maryland, New York, and South Carolina. Paul Blackman, PhD, research coordinator for the National Rifle Association, called the $2.3 billion tab for gunshot injuries "insignificant compared to our nation's other medical costs." The $2.3 billion represents less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the nation's annual medical costs, he said. Gun violence is an ongoing concern to emergency health workers, said George Velianoff, DNSc, RN, deputy executive director of the Emergency Nurses Association. Emergency health workers not only treat gunshot victims, but must protect themselves against gun violence, he said.
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