thedrifter
11-28-05, 06:12 AM
In Afghanistan, the job is tough, but they love it
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Published: November 28th, 2005 02:30 AM
As a nurse at Madigan Army Medical Center’s pediatric ward, Sgt. Kerri Schlief knows about the suffering of children.
Still, it took some adjusting to get used to the U.S. military hospital in Afghanistan where she’s been working the past seven months.
The hours are long. The trauma cases are severe. Most patients are Afghans, many of them little kids badly burned in household accidents. The cultural differences can be mystifying – especially the lesser status of women and girls.
“I hate to say that I have more sympathy for the females than I do for the men, but they definitely do get treated differently,” said Schlief, a 26-year-old licensed practical nurse.
She is one of seven Madigan treatment providers working across Afghanistan.
“It’s hard to deal with. You’ve got the language barrier. You also have the male patients not wanting females taking care of them,” she said. “It can be challenging at times.”
But she and others from Madigan say they see their efforts paying off.
“We’ve had a lot of people come in and say they’re really appreciative of what we did for them,” said Schlief, who is due home early next month. “It’s a good feeling. We’re out here, we’re working really hard.”
The Madigan providers were all deployed individually to fill out units from other Army posts around the world.
Whether helping a tiny burn patient, bringing public health teams to remote villages or preparing wounded soldiers for evacuation home, they say they’re playing an important role in the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. Michael Doyle, a Madigan psychiatrist, is deputy director of the clinical staff at the main U.S. military hospital in Afghanistan, at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
The 35-bed facility provides advanced surgical care for wounded U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghans in danger of losing life, limb or eyesight.
He said 85-90 percent of the patients are Afghans.
Doyle, 39, said an infantry brigade commander told him recently about a father who brought his injured son to U.S. medics, who saved the young man’s life.
Later, the father showed the brigade commander’s men where they would find Taliban fighters waiting to ambush them.
“I’ve heard several like that,” Doyle said. “I think medicine has a tremendous effect on the mission here.”
Another Madigan doctor, Lt. Col. Edward Michaud, directs medical assistance missions across the country.
His teams reach out into the most remote areas to treat villagers and teach hygiene and public health. They also visit hospitals to assess how they can help revive the country’s health system.
“We do them almost always now in conjunction with Afghan providers: nurses, doctors, veterinarians,” Michaud said.
“The idea is that people will see their providers are there helping. We give them some legitimacy, they give us some legitimacy, and together we make the mission more successful.”
Michaud, 40, said health care in Afghanistan was devastated by decades of war, first the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and then the civil war.
He said local doctors told him their hospitals hid equipment from the Taliban.
The Afghan government has opened hospitals in most provinces and several regional hospitals in the larger cities, including Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-i-sharif.
Non-government charities also operate several hospitals across the country.
Doyle said his hospital provides acute care for injured or sick Afghans and then provides supplies and expertise for their follow-on care at Afghan hospitals.
The U.S. hospital at Bagram also supports facilities nearby that are operated by the Egyptian and South Korean governments, and a Jordanian hospital in Mazar-i-sharif, that provide primary care for local residents. They’ve established a residency program to help train Afghan doctors.
The Madigan people say their living conditions are comfortable enough. They’ve got plywood buildings, heat, a gym, decent food and ready telephone and Internet connections.
Schlief said she works six days a week, sometimes seven, usually 12 hours a day.
It’s a struggle to cope with the steady stream of Afghans who are brought in with devastating burns.
Thanks to unreliable fuel mixtures, heater explosions are commonplace when the weather turns. Since it’s usually women or children who have to light the lamps in the morning, they’re more often the victims.
One patient, a baby they call Zarghona, arrived at 2 days old with horrible, disfiguring burns on her face and head. Her mother was holding her when the lamp exploded. She’s been at the Bagram hospital nearly six months.
A plastic surgeon restored her eyelids, rebuilt her left ear and repaired skin on her scalp, but she’s still got a long way to go.
Schlief said the girl’s family seems indifferent about getting her back; the nurses and doctors have become attached.
“We’re her mom and dad. We’re everything to her,” Schlief said.
It’s going to be hard to let her go.
“I don’t want to say I get used to it, that’s not how I feel about it,” she said of the emotional toll of her work. “But out here it’s a job.”
Still, she said, “it’s emotionally draining when kids die or get hurt. It’s very sad, and it affects everybody here.”
But along with the heartbreak come inspiring moments. Doyle ticks them off:
• The exhausted U.S. Navy corpsman who probably saved the lives of three badly wounded Marines he accompanied to the hospital.
• The Afghan National Army soldier who, blown up by a roadside bomb, declined the gratuity payment his general was handing him, saying, “I don’t fight for money.”
• The woman running for a seat in the recent elections who came in with a gunshot wound to the leg, stayed overnight and left the next day on crutches to get back out on the campaign trail.
“It’s a great job, a great mission, great people,” Doyle said. “I’m just amazed every day.”
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com
Ellie
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Published: November 28th, 2005 02:30 AM
As a nurse at Madigan Army Medical Center’s pediatric ward, Sgt. Kerri Schlief knows about the suffering of children.
Still, it took some adjusting to get used to the U.S. military hospital in Afghanistan where she’s been working the past seven months.
The hours are long. The trauma cases are severe. Most patients are Afghans, many of them little kids badly burned in household accidents. The cultural differences can be mystifying – especially the lesser status of women and girls.
“I hate to say that I have more sympathy for the females than I do for the men, but they definitely do get treated differently,” said Schlief, a 26-year-old licensed practical nurse.
She is one of seven Madigan treatment providers working across Afghanistan.
“It’s hard to deal with. You’ve got the language barrier. You also have the male patients not wanting females taking care of them,” she said. “It can be challenging at times.”
But she and others from Madigan say they see their efforts paying off.
“We’ve had a lot of people come in and say they’re really appreciative of what we did for them,” said Schlief, who is due home early next month. “It’s a good feeling. We’re out here, we’re working really hard.”
The Madigan providers were all deployed individually to fill out units from other Army posts around the world.
Whether helping a tiny burn patient, bringing public health teams to remote villages or preparing wounded soldiers for evacuation home, they say they’re playing an important role in the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. Michael Doyle, a Madigan psychiatrist, is deputy director of the clinical staff at the main U.S. military hospital in Afghanistan, at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
The 35-bed facility provides advanced surgical care for wounded U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghans in danger of losing life, limb or eyesight.
He said 85-90 percent of the patients are Afghans.
Doyle, 39, said an infantry brigade commander told him recently about a father who brought his injured son to U.S. medics, who saved the young man’s life.
Later, the father showed the brigade commander’s men where they would find Taliban fighters waiting to ambush them.
“I’ve heard several like that,” Doyle said. “I think medicine has a tremendous effect on the mission here.”
Another Madigan doctor, Lt. Col. Edward Michaud, directs medical assistance missions across the country.
His teams reach out into the most remote areas to treat villagers and teach hygiene and public health. They also visit hospitals to assess how they can help revive the country’s health system.
“We do them almost always now in conjunction with Afghan providers: nurses, doctors, veterinarians,” Michaud said.
“The idea is that people will see their providers are there helping. We give them some legitimacy, they give us some legitimacy, and together we make the mission more successful.”
Michaud, 40, said health care in Afghanistan was devastated by decades of war, first the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and then the civil war.
He said local doctors told him their hospitals hid equipment from the Taliban.
The Afghan government has opened hospitals in most provinces and several regional hospitals in the larger cities, including Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-i-sharif.
Non-government charities also operate several hospitals across the country.
Doyle said his hospital provides acute care for injured or sick Afghans and then provides supplies and expertise for their follow-on care at Afghan hospitals.
The U.S. hospital at Bagram also supports facilities nearby that are operated by the Egyptian and South Korean governments, and a Jordanian hospital in Mazar-i-sharif, that provide primary care for local residents. They’ve established a residency program to help train Afghan doctors.
The Madigan people say their living conditions are comfortable enough. They’ve got plywood buildings, heat, a gym, decent food and ready telephone and Internet connections.
Schlief said she works six days a week, sometimes seven, usually 12 hours a day.
It’s a struggle to cope with the steady stream of Afghans who are brought in with devastating burns.
Thanks to unreliable fuel mixtures, heater explosions are commonplace when the weather turns. Since it’s usually women or children who have to light the lamps in the morning, they’re more often the victims.
One patient, a baby they call Zarghona, arrived at 2 days old with horrible, disfiguring burns on her face and head. Her mother was holding her when the lamp exploded. She’s been at the Bagram hospital nearly six months.
A plastic surgeon restored her eyelids, rebuilt her left ear and repaired skin on her scalp, but she’s still got a long way to go.
Schlief said the girl’s family seems indifferent about getting her back; the nurses and doctors have become attached.
“We’re her mom and dad. We’re everything to her,” Schlief said.
It’s going to be hard to let her go.
“I don’t want to say I get used to it, that’s not how I feel about it,” she said of the emotional toll of her work. “But out here it’s a job.”
Still, she said, “it’s emotionally draining when kids die or get hurt. It’s very sad, and it affects everybody here.”
But along with the heartbreak come inspiring moments. Doyle ticks them off:
• The exhausted U.S. Navy corpsman who probably saved the lives of three badly wounded Marines he accompanied to the hospital.
• The Afghan National Army soldier who, blown up by a roadside bomb, declined the gratuity payment his general was handing him, saying, “I don’t fight for money.”
• The woman running for a seat in the recent elections who came in with a gunshot wound to the leg, stayed overnight and left the next day on crutches to get back out on the campaign trail.
“It’s a great job, a great mission, great people,” Doyle said. “I’m just amazed every day.”
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com
Ellie