11 April 2003
Wounded Iraqis, Coalition Forces Get Equal Medical Care
(Treatment provided by staff of U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort) (840) By David Anthony Denny Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- About 150 Iraqis, both soldiers and civilians, have received medical care on board the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort since the Iraq war began, according to the ship's commanding officer, Captain Charles Blankenship. In a satellite telephone briefing from the ship in the Persian Gulf April 11, Captain Blankenship said that of the 150 Iraqi patients, 32 have been civilians. About 120 coalition force members also have received care and treatment on the Comfort, he said, though only about 32 to 35 were wounded in action. The rest, he said, were being treated for "the same illnesses and conditions that everyone else has in the United States" -- eye injuries, hand injuries (common on board ship), appendicitis, gall bladder attacks, etc. Navy Lieutenant Ramzy Aznar, one of four Arabic language translators aboard the Comfort, said the enemy prisoners of war (EPWs) he meets "express thankfulness for what we are providing them. They are very appreciative. "The care they're getting, I think, sometimes is overwhelming to them, mainly because of the sophistication that we are able to provide for them, and they're really not accustomed to that," Aznar said. "I had one situation where an EPW had come on board, and he was convinced that we were going to hurt him on board. As I tried to reassure him that we are here to help him," Aznar said, "he just simply broke down and cried." Blankenship said that the medical crew of the Comfort hasn't discriminated at all between Iraqi and coalition patients. The ship's primary mission is combat support, and its secondary mission is humanitarian and/or disaster relief, and it is performing both missions, he said. "The crew is a health professional crew," Blankenship said. "They're trained to take care of anybody who's sick and injured, and there really hasn't been any distinction between ... coalition forces and Iraqi personnel, as far as the care that's rendered. And I think the crew has really ... done an outstanding job with the care that they've given." The Comfort, a converted supertanker, has a 1,000-bed capacity, according to Blankenship. The level of care provided is termed tertiary care, and is comparable to what military personnel would receive at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, or Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, or Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center in Texas, he said. Blankenship said the Comfort gets coalition patients who have fairly serious injuries and need to be stabilized. "We stabilize those patients and get them strong enough that they can withstand a trip back to the next level of care, which would either be in Landstuhl, Germany, or Rota, Spain, and then further transport back to [the] continental United States," Blankenship said. As for Iraqi EPWs and civilians, Blankenship said the crew follows the Geneva Conventions. "Patients who are brought to us, [it] doesn't matter who they are; we take care of everyone who shows up and they get the same standard of care. In fact, the first casualties we treated were Iraqi prisoners of war," he said. Navy Commander Ralph Jones, chief surgeon aboard the Comfort, said his team of surgeons has performed procedures on 274 patients, though particular cases may require multiple surgeries. Jones said his surgical caseload is trending upward from March 20 through April 10. He said the surgeons handled 35 cases on April 10, an equivalent number on the 11th, and are booked for an equivalent number on the 12th. Providing a breakdown of cases, Jones said 88 percent of the cases are combatant injuries and 12 percent are non-combatant injuries. Enemy prisoners of war have constituted 61 percent of the surgical caseload, he said, U.S. or coalition forces 28 percent and Iraqi civilians 11 percent. The average case time in surgery is two hours and 40 minutes, Jones said. The longest surgery was for a U.S. serviceman whose injured spine was essentially rebuilt, and the shortest time in surgery has been about 10 minutes, for simple washing out of wounds or removing dead tissue, he said. Nursing care needs are basically the same for all patients, the Comfort's head nurse, Navy Commander Tommy Stewart, said. All require nourishment and pain medication, and most require antibiotics, he said. Because of multiple surgeries on individual patients, many require multiple changes of wound dressing, he said. After patients have received the treatment required and they can care for themselves, Blankenship said, they are transferred from the Comfort to a facility ashore. EPWs are transferred to the prisoner camp, and coalition forces return to their unit. Some on board right now, though, are in very critical condition and will require longer-term care, he said. "[W]e will keep those people on board as long as necessary to provide that care and until facilities are available ashore that we could transfer them [to] for that continued care," Blankenship said. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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