ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608090107
SECTION: DISCOVER ROANOKE VALLEY PAGE: 34 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
Sooner or later, a newcomer to the Roanoke Valley will hear a "whap-whap-whap" overheard and wonder about that helicopter flying into the center of Roanoke.
That would be Life-Guard 10, on its way to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital with a seriously injured person.
The rescue vehicle, owned by a division of Carilion Health System, stays staffed 24 hours a day ready to make a pickup run into western Virginia or to rush a Roanoke Valley resident to a specialty medical center such as the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.
As the only Level 1 trauma center in the Roanoke Valley, Carilion Roanoke Memorial near the city's downtown is equipped for cardiac pulmonary bypass operations. Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, which is in downtown, and Columbia Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem also have emergency rooms, but they do not have trauma level designations.
Carilion Roanoke Community, which specializes in women's and children's services, has a children's cancer treatment center. Columbia Lewis-Gale also has substantial women's services, including a new Breast Center where cancer detection services are centralized.
Also, if you haven't already noticed, the Roanoke Valley - in fact all the hospitals in western Virginia - belong to one of two camps, that of Carilion, which is based in Roanoke, or Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., of Nashville, Tenn. Carilion also owns a string of physician practices, and Columbia Lewis-Gale has the state's largest physician group, Lewis-Gale Clinic, as a site mate, but the two are not related by ownership.
Other health care services available include the Mount Regis Center in Salem, which specializes in alcohol treatment; the Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke, which serves working people who do not have health care insurance; Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, which has full clinic services including abortions; and the Roanoke Medical Center for Women, which provides family planning services, including abortions. In addition, the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Roanoke Valley Inc. offers family planning services and counsels women on alternatives to abortion, but is not a medical clinic.
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