Soldiers, Airmen care for Iraqi patients

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Chawntain Sloan
  • Multi-National Corps-Iraq Public Affairs
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Only a few hours earlier, surgeons were working diligently to save his life and repair the damage a bullet caused when it entered his abdomen and ricocheted throughout his body.

Now, the 11-year-old Iraqi boy sleeps peacefully with his favorite stuffed animal clutched in his hand. His father, next to his bed, stares with a fixed gaze anxious for his son to wake up.

“There are no words,” said Hussein, the boy’s father. Some Iraq names are omitted or altered for security reasons. “Thank you. You saved my son.”

But a grateful father’s thanks are the only words that matter to the Airmen Soldiers and Australian defense forces of the Air Force theater hospital here.

The medics, technicians, nurses and doctors assigned to the combat support hospital here provide expert care to anyone who comes through their doors.

Although the hospital was primarily established to treat coalition troops, Department of Defense employees and contract civilians, the bulk of the patients filling the wards are Iraqis.

“The capabilities of the medical facility in Baghdad and the local hospital in Balad are no where near ours. The Iraqi medical system is just really behind,” said Lt. Col. Laurie Hall, the theater hospital’s chief nurse.

With three operating rooms, three wards, two intensive care units, a fully equipped emergency room and substantial pharmacy, lab and X-ray capabilities, the hospital boasts of some of the best services available.

“We perform most of the same major procedures that a stateside hospital does -- general, orthopedic, vascular, neurological, urological, maxillofacial and eye surgeries -- but we are not designed for long-term care,” said Colonel Hall, who is assigned to the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group and deployed from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

Many of the patients treated at the hospital are civilians caught in cross fires or Iraqi military forces. Some patients are the very insurgents who initiate attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. But no matter the patient, the medics’ goal is to make sure their patients leave in better shape than when they arrived.

Colonel Hall recalled a recent case of an insurgent brought to the hospital after an improvised explosive device detonated while he attempted to set it.

“No one else was hurt but him, and the very people he was trying to kill -- the Soldiers from the convoy -- are the ones who initiated the first aid and gave their own blood to save his life,” said Colonel Hall.

She said the surgeons were “amazingly able to piece him back together, but he has a long, painful road of recovery ahead.”

However, prisoners are not ordinary patients. All prisoners must be kept under guard and blindfolded to protect the hospital staff and other patients.

“It doesn’t matter that you just saved their life, they don’t care,” she said. “It is a really hard concept to grasp as a nurse because it’s not the way we are trained. It’s really hard not to let your guard down, but you have to remember, if you gave them half the chance, they would kill you.”

Unfortunately, the medics’ best efforts are not always enough to save a patient’s life. And for the medics, technicians, nurses and doctors who fought for that patient, the news can be devastating.

“There was one 24-year-old Pakistani man who was brought to us from another location. He was terribly sick when we got him and though we tried our very best, he died. The nurse who had worked so hard on him just lost it. She burst into tears right there,” Colonel Hall said. “You may be a nurse, but you’re a human first. You can’t help but feel. If you don’t feel, then there is something wrong.”

But the medics do not let the tragic losses overshadow their successes.

A shaved head and a sizeable scar are one Iraqi girl’s only clue that surgeons worked tirelessly to save her life and remove a rock that a near-fatal car accident left lodged in her brain.

After about two weeks of recuperating, the young girl is in good health and ready to go home -- a testament that their efforts weren’t in vain.

“I’m amazed she even survived,” Colonel Hall said. “The surgeons did an amazing job.”

According to the medics, it is the quality of work they provide every day that makes their patient care exceptional. To them, it is more than just doing their duty; they do it because they care.

“You can’t help but care about these people, and you want to do everything you can to make them better,” Colonel Hall said.