Trauma doc rips pols
‘Mind-boggling’ they can’t stop gun violence
As he watches the surge in gunshot victims across the city, veteran trauma surgeon Dr. Ronald Simon is baffled by politicians’ inability to stem the bloodshed.
“It’s mind-boggling to me that we can’t get our act together to start taking steps to prevent this kind of gun violence,” said Simon, director of trauma surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
The Daily News reported Monday that hospital transports for gunshot victims have doubled so far in 2020 compared to 2019 — leaving a bloody harvest at trauma room doors citywide.
Thirty-seven people were shot last week through Sunday, compared to 12 in the same week last year, NYPD figures show.
On Sunday night, a young woman was killed and six teens were wounded by gunfire at a Brooklyn “Sweet 16 party.
This year, 1,704 people have been shot — more than twice the 804 victims last year, NYPD figures show.
And murder is up 37% with 416 homicide victims this year compared with 304 in the same period last year.
“I just hope that eventually, sooner rather than later, people could put their political desires or motives aside and all get together and create laws or programs that will enable us to reduce the availability of guns and prevent people from getting them that shouldn’t have them so that there are no innocent bystanders,” Simon said. That’s easier said than done. Councilmen Donovan Richard, a Queens Democrat, and Joseph Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, agree that the city’s medics and doctors are doing yeoman’s work in dealing with the violence — but they disagree on the cause.
Richards cited an influx of illegal guns and the pandemic-fueled deterioration in youth services as factors in the surge.
“We are in a state of emergency for Black and brown communities. If you don’t have outlets for young people, the streets will grab them. Right now, it’s having a place for them to go or it’s the gangs. This is a breeding season for gangs,” Richards said.
Borelli blamed the changes in laws governing pretrial detention and police tactics, and the NYPD decision to dissolve plainclothes anti-crime units.
“This has been an exercise in progressive government gone awry,” he said.
A spokesman for Mayor de
Blasio did not reply to a request for comment.
Simon, who has worked in trauma units at Bellevue, Jacobi and Lincoln hospitals during his 30-year career, noted that officials from other countries make pilgrimages to the United States to learn life-saving techniques.
“The military came to train in our hospital so they can learn how to take care of gunshots — the military doctors. What does that say?” Simon said.
“I don’t care if they are a good guy, the bad guy, [or if] they were a bystander. My job is to take the best care of them that I can,” he said.