Michael Hixon
Daily Breeze, Torrance, Calif.
(TNS)
When it comes to strokes, every minute counts.
So in an effort to reduce long-term complications and even death, two state-of-the-art Mobile Stroke Units were unveiled on Wednesday, May 28, at Torrance Fire Station No. 1 by Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn and UCLA Health.
“For every minute that a patient waits for treatment, 2 million brain cells die,” Hahn said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “But if doctors can treat someone quickly, they can not only improve that patient’s chance of survival, but can prevent serious brain injury and nerve damage.”
The new Mobile Stroke Units join one that’s been operated by UCLA Heath, in partnership with LA County, since 2017. The original unit “has responded to more than 2,000 calls and treated more than 360 patients,” according to a Wednesday press release from Hahn’s office.
The new units will serve areas of the Westside, South Bay, Long Beach, the Gateway Cities and, beginning in August, the San Fernando Valley.
Dr. May Nour, an interventional and vascular neurologist and medical director of the UCLA Mobile Stroke Unit Program, said the hope is to expand the units to all the fire departments in the county.
“Our vision is to see this available for every stroke survivor in our county,” Nour said. “Our dream and our vision is to have seven to 10 mobile stroke units that become part of the fabric of EMS care.”
The units are “built with a mobile CT scanner, point-of-care lab tests, telehealth connection with a vascular neurologist, and therapies,” a Wednesday press release said, “all designed to deliver proven stroke treatments to patients faster than ever before.
“Physicians on the unit can administer clot-busting drugs to patients in the field,” the release added, “long before they get to an emergency room.”
Hahn is continuing the legacy of her father, the late Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who started the nation’s first paramedic program, which began by treating “heart attack patients in the field, before they arrived at a hospital, improving their health outcomes,” according to the press release.
The elder Hahn had a stroke when he was 67 years old, the younger Hahn said. That left him paralyzed on his left side and he lost the use of his left arm, his daughter said, but “he eventually went back to the job he loved as county supervisor.”
“He was in a wheelchair for the last 10 years of his life,” Hahn said. “Obviously, it was difficult for him to get around. It was really hard on my mom, who was his primary caregiver, and difficult on everyone around him to keep him engaged in his life and his job while being paralyzed.”
In 2017, Hahn partnered with UCLA Health to launch the first Mobile Stroke Unit on the West Coast, in L.A. County.
“We’re adding two newer, even more high tech units; that means faster response times and ultimately, better outcomes for more people,” Hahn said. “Our goal is simple, to save lives and preserve the quality of life. We want people not to just survive a stroke, like my dad did, but to walk, to talk, to enjoy life. We’ve seen people who have experienced a stroke walk out of the hospital hours later because the Mobile Stroke Unit figured out which kind of stroke they were having.”
The fund for the new units came from a $6 million donation from the Brett Torino