Wounded Iraqi troops fill Air Force hospital

[Barrett808]

Wounded Iraqi troops fill Air Force hospital
By Ron Jensen, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, November 22, 2004

BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Iraqi troops wounded as they fought alongside Americans in the recent Fallujah offensive are filling nearly half of the beds at the Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad, worrying doctors about the availability of bed space should another tidal wave of patients arrive.

“We are very nervous,” said Dr. (Col.) Greg Wickern, commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group.

Unlike the wounded Americans, Iraqi casualties are not evacuated to the Army Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl, Germany. They remain in Iraq, requiring a bed and the attention of the medical staff.

And because of both a weak health care system in Iraq and the danger faced by Iraqis who help Americans, many patients cannot be released from the hospital at Balad Air Base, known as Logistics Support Area Anaconda.

If another military action or a particularly effective mortar blast create a large number of casualties for Wickern’s hospital, he said, “We would have to swell our bed space.”

An Air Force Theater Hospital is defined as an 84-bed hospital with the capacity to expand. Specific numbers of patients are not discussed.

(more)

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=25647

[saigon68]

1. Nice mess we are creating here.

Puppet troops had better be taken care of. If they don't, that supply of puppet troops will dry up too.

I wonder if we are going to give them purple hearts too. And BTW how much are they being paid--- anyone know ?