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EMF Dallas Cares for U.S., Coalition Troops in Kuwait

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS050412-01
Release Date: 4/12/2005 12:15:00 PM
 

By Journalist 1st Class (SCW/FMF) Lisa Keding, Naval Media Center Fleet Support Detachment Bahrain

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait (NNS) -- Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) Dallas is bringing state-of-the-art medical care to military members serving on the front lines of Operation Iraqi Freedom from a tent city in Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. The Reserve unit, comprised of more than 300 doctors, nurses and support staff deployed to Kuwait earlier this year.

This is the first time a team of Reservists in this type of unit has been recalled to active duty since operations in Iraq began two years ago. Many members of the team, who are from 48 different states, didn't expect the order that brought them so close to the operations in Iraq.

"We had been told never to expect our type of unit to be recalled as a group again." said Capt. Nancy Cathey, executive officer of EMF Dallas. "They were working at dismantling this type of unit. So, when the order came through for us to come, we were really excited and surprised."

The unit is set up in a series of tents and performs many of the same functions that a normal hospital would. There is an intensive care unit, two operating rooms, two wards, a lab and many of the other ancillary services patients might need.

It may be hard to visualize an operating room in a tent or a state-of-the-art cat scan machine in a large metal box, but the mobile accommodations do not seem to affect the fast tempo and 24-hour operations of the team.

"My preconceived notion coming in here is that I wouldn't be doing arthroscopies of the knee and certain trauma cases that we've been doing," said EMF Dallas' orthopedic surgeon department head, Cmdr. Gregg Wolffe. "I just didn't think we'd be doing that kind of thing here, but it's fairly easily accomplished here."

Most of the members assigned to the unit work at Camp Arifjan, but there are also 10 other outlying clinics on different camps that team members currently support. In at least one of the clinics, coalition medical staff work with the EMF Dallas team, and the outlying clinics and the clinic on Camp Arifjan see troops from all the different coalition forces.

"We've seen a lot of different nationalities - a lot of different patients from a lot of different camps. It's been quite busy," said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (FMF) Cathy Blair. Blair is assigned to Ward M in EMF Dallas.

The tents stay busy 24 hours a day. Nurses and corpsmen hang and check bags of saline, and doctors perform surgeries and talk to patients.

"This is the culmination of all those many years of training and experience, and we are all very proud to be here at this moment," said Cathey.