Providence, which operates the Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, announced a gun safety program after treating victims of the Saugus High shooting last year, officials said.

The program is also expected to roll out at 10 Providence hospitals across Southern California, according to hospital officials.

The program will focus on securing guns properly in the home and expanding emergency first aid training and access to emergency medical supplies for the public, according to Dr. Bernard Klein, who is spearheading the program.

“It’s a matter of common-sense safety,” Klein said in a statement. “The vast majority of victims of accidental shootings are children who find guns in their home.”

The program is inspired in part by the recent Saugus High shooting. Two of the victims, Mia Tretta and Addison Koegle, received medical care at Providence Holy Cross where Klein works. 

The program outlined by Klein will include statistics on the rates of injuries and deaths related to accidental shootings and stress the importance of properly securing guns to keep them out of the hands of children or people with mental health conditions who could potentially harm themselves or others, according to Klein.

In 2017, close to 40,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 60 percent of gun-related deaths were suicides, while 486, or about 1 percent, were unintentional shootings, according to the CDC.

Providence also plans to seek grants to expand the Stop the Bleed program, which offers training and equipment known as bleed kits to provide emergency first aid to victims experiencing blood loss before first responders can arrive.

Saugus High School was equipped with bleed kits that were used during the Saugus High shooting.  Those kits were available thanks to the effort of two local sisters, Maci and Cambria Lawrence, and their Keep the Pressure campaign, which is similar to Stop The Bleed. 

See Related: Santa Clarita Sisters To Introduce ‘Bleed Kits’ To Every Classroom In Hart District

The statistics that Klein researched on gun safety in the home are being collected into brochures to be distributed at Providence’s 10 hospitals throughout Southern California with the hope of increasing gun safety, according to Klein.

“This is a crisis, and one that organizations should respond to immediately by declaring the need for policy at the state and federal levels (and) spurring community intervention,” Klein said.

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