(a) It is declared and found that a major problem facing medicine and the public health and welfare is the absence of an adequate program to assist in the treatment and rehabilitation of persons suffering from congenital or acquired spinal cord dysfunction.

(b)

(1) It has been found that no fewer than one thousand one hundred (1,100) Arkansas residents presently suffer from spinal cord injury or damage, and it is estimated that at least one hundred twenty (120) Arkansans experience serious injury or congenital dysfunction of the spinal cord annually.

(2) Furthermore, it has been found that a fully coordinated approach to the early recognition, the emergency care and transportation, the definitive treatment and rehabilitation, and the long-term management direction and support of such persons is presently lacking and yet is essential to guaranteeing these patients the best possible opportunity to minimize mortality, morbidity, and permanent disability.

(3) It is further recognized that the enormous cost for medical services, hospitalization, and rehabilitative care of spinal cord injured persons makes it extremely difficult, and often financially impossible, for persons of moderate or modest means to secure adequate medical and rehabilitative services, and in most cases, services are financially possible only by the very wealthy, if at all.

(4) Therefore, to guarantee the best possible opportunity for minimizing the mortality, morbidity, and permanent disability of persons due to spinal cord injury or dysfunction, it is essential that the state develop a program to:

(A) Provide for complete identification and visible integration of the numerous complex funding mechanisms which are applicable to the needs of a particular individual at each overlapping stage of treatment and rehabilitation and provide financial assistance when necessary to fill a specific identified gap in funding a portion of the coordinated treatment and rehabilitation plan of a specified patient when the patient's own financial resources are insufficient to meet such requirements;

(B) Authorize the development and operation of an Arkansas spinal cord treatment center and system which will integrate present treatment and rehabilitative capabilities and develop additional service capabilities as necessary to guarantee the availability of continuously current and evolving new processes in state-of-the-art treatment and rehabilitative services to all spinal cord disabled Arkansans; and

(C) Provide for full coordination of treatment and rehabilitation efforts from problem recognition through progressive rehabilitation and for as long as a need for these specialized services shall exist.