Manas medics provide training to Bishkek hospital employees

  • Published
  • By Capt. Christy Stravolo
  • 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFPN) --  Three local hospitals in Bishkek are getting more than $10 million in medical supplies and equipment from the U.S., and members of the 376th Expeditionary Medical Group here are assisting in the effort by training hospital personnel to use some of the new equipment.

Col. Howard Hayes, 376 EMDG commander, took members of his team to a press conference Oct. 25 at a crowded Bishkek hospital where the State Department officially presented equipment to the first of the three hospitals receiving assistance under Operation Provide Hope.

"I think Operation Provide Hope is a terrific program and I'm glad I was able to be here when the U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan presented this $10 million gift to the Kyrgyz people," Colonel Hayes said after the press conference at Bishkek City Hospital.

"Now that the Kyrgyz have the equipment and supplies, they need to learn how to use it. That's where we come in," he said.

The colonel and his team, deployed from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, aim to visit each of the hospitals receiving supplies and equipment so they can show the nurses, doctors and medical technicians how to use them.  Much of the equipment may be new to the Kyrgyz medical staffs, Colonel Hayes said.

In addition to Bishkek City Hospital, the Oncology Center and the Trauma Hospital also are receiving U.S. humanitarian assistance. Senior Airman Ryan Flynn, a biomedical equipment technician on Colonel Hayes' team, already has visited the Oncology Center and helped set up a new X-ray machine earlier in the week.

"The old machine they were using to do X-rays was built in 1973," Airman Flynn said. "The unit given to them by Operation Provide Hope was manufactured in 1992, but it's never been used so really it's brand new."

The unit will provide a new modality of X-ray the Kyrgyz have never had access to before, according to Airman Flynn.

"It will greatly enhance the diagnostic capabilities for the doctors, allowing for earlier detection and treatment of cancer in patients," he said.

As soon as the press conference concluded, several truckloads of boxes containing everything from surgical instruments to bed pans and stainless steel tables were quickly offloaded and carried into the hospital to be put to immediate use.

"These people are very skilled, but they lack the tools they need to do their jobs more effectively," Colonel Hayes said. "They have to wash surgical gloves and ventilation tubes so they can use them again. They have patients with catheters draining into empty plastic soda bottles. They desperately needed these medical supplies and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were extremely happy to receive them."

Operation Provide Hope is a continuing humanitarian operation to provide excess medical equipment to the former Soviet republics during their transition to democratic and free market states. The last time Kyrgyzstan received assistance under Operation Provide Hope was in 1993. The U.S. will send another $10 million shipment of medical aid to the Kyrgyz in 2007.