Shepherd Center Helps Found Spinal Cord Leaders Council

January 15, 2008

Media Contact: Jane Sanders (404-350-7707)

ATLANTA - Shepherd Center is one of 19 national organizations that recently formed the Spinal Cord Leaders Council to advance federal legislative and regulatory policies to empower people with spinal cord injuries or disorders to lead more active and productive lives.

“The formation of the Council is a unique opportunity to pool resources and grassroots voices of people with spinal cord injuries or disorders in our nation to achieve breakthroughs on issues too long neglected,” said Paul J. Tobin, chairman of the Council and president of the United Spinal Association.

The Council has selected three major goals for its 2008 policy agenda:

- to abolish Medicare and Medicaid’s “in the home” policy, which provides a power-operated wheelchair or scooter to a beneficiary only if it is needed to move within the home, but bans this type of wheelchair if needed to move within the community;

- to persuade Congress to enact the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act to promote spinal cord paralysis research and to improve rehabilitation for spinal cord injuries and disorders;

- to ensure that critical healthcare issues facing Americans with spinal cord injuries and dysfunction are clearly articulated in the healthcare platforms of the 2008 presidential candidates.

“Shepherd Center’s long history of advocacy for people with spinal cord injuries and disorders makes its participation in the Spinal Cord Leaders Council a natural extension of our commitment to help improve the lives of people with disabilities,” said Mark Johnson, Shepherd Center’s advocacy director and one of the founding members of the Council. Johnson represents Shepherd Center as a voting member of the Council, and Shepherd CEO and president Gary Ulicny and chairman of the board James Shepherd are participating members who make recommendations to the Council.

In addition to Shepherd Center, the organizations participating in the Spinal Cord Leaders Council are the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Kennedy Krieger Institute, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation, Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Craig Hospital, American Spinal Injury Association, Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, National Rehabilitation Hospital, United Spinal Association, University of Utah-Rehabilitation Services, Rehabilitation Institute of Indianapolis, Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, ITEM Coalition, New Mobility magazine, American Association of SCI Nurses, American Association of SCI Psychologists and Social Workers, American Paraplegia Society and the American Spinal Injury Association.

About Shepherd Center
Shepherd Center is a private, not-for-profit hospital devoted to the medical care and rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury and disease, acquired brain injury, multiple sclerosis and other neuromuscular problems. Each year Shepherd Center admits more than 750 patients and conducts thousands of outpatient clinic visits. For more information, visit Shepherd Center online at www.shepherd.org.