PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The desperate call for gun violence prevention continues to grow, and this time, the medical community is poignantly weighing in.
Penn Medicine brought community groups, experts, and elected officials together on Friday to discuss more solutions.
"This is going to take an effort like we’ve never probably seen before," said Congressman Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia). He set the stage for the forum, an attempt to keep the conversation going until real meaningful change begins.
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Philadelphia is seeing the record number of shooting deaths continue to rise, with 535 homicides in the city entering Friday.
Trauma units are becoming more exhausted and emotionally drained as they see shooting deaths almost every day.
Dr. Eugina South, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, noted a sobering statistic.
“Until a Black man turns 45, his most likely cause of death is homicide," said Dr. South.
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She spoke about a study that shows how greening neighborhoods, the process of cleaning them up and investing in them, helps to cut down on the violent crime whose victims she treats on a regular basis.
“I often think about this astute observation after I care for shooting victims in the trauma bay of my emergency department, especially for those young Black men whose voices I never get to hear and whose names I never get to know," Dr. South shared through tears.
"I wonder, what if we as a country made an intentional decision to invest in them?”
Some elected officials are calling for a national movement, as State Senator Anthony Williams (D-Delaware County, Philadelphia) said gun violence has reached a national crisis.
“I only ask that the President of the United States consider this request, plea and desire, to please consider this a national crisis, and allow us to have a national conversation as we push forward to solutions, because it is solvable," said Williams.
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Cheryl Seay, a Senior Community Health worker with Penn, lost her 18-year-old son to gun violence in 2011.
She said we need to get back to the basics of the village, and that solving this crisis has to be a collective effort.
"When we can work together with the education system, the law system, the medical system, and with every entity that delivers human service…then we’ll see the change," said Seay.
Panel members discussed possible solutions such as cleaning up blighted areas, firearm safety, and even social media accountability as many of the shootings apparently stem from internet arguments.
Penn Medicine received funding and started an initiative called REACH to continue the work against gun violence, which will launch in February. It's part of a movement called West Southwest Collaborative.
