To provide better counseling and support services to patients and families afflicted by violence, Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago is partnering with CeaseFire Illinois to help those individuals cope with post-trauma grief.
CeaseFire, a violence-prevention public health program, will have responders available 24 hours to answer Mount Sinai's calls within 30 minutes and to aid with violence-related injuries, said Cara Pacione, the hospital's director of social services. The program, slated to begin by the end of March, is funded by a grant from the Michael Reese Health Trust. The amount of the grant was not disclosed.
Mount Sinai's trauma center on the city's southwest side is one of four adult Level I trauma centers in Chicago and sees many patients with violence-related injuries.
“CeaseFire has a very good track record of de-escalating violent situations and helping to prevent retaliatory violence, so we're hoping that in our community they'll be able to do the same,” Pacione said. “Right now, patients and families are basically unsupported in the way that they will be when CeaseFire is implemented here.”
CeaseFire, founded in 1995, is the Illinois program partner of Cure Violence, a global violence-prevention organization. It operates in 16 communities in Chicago and in an additional five communities elsewhere in Illinois, according to the organization's website.
