University of Chicago Medicine working to expand trauma care on South Side

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Trauma care could soon be available to more children on Chicago's South Side. University of Chicago Medicine is working to raise the age limit of patients treated at its pediatric trauma center.

Comer Children's Hospital is certified to treat patients 15 years old and younger. U of C Medicine is now taking formal steps to include 16 and 17-year-olds.

The move follows years of protests demanding that the U of C reopen its adult trauma center, which closed in 1988.