thedrifter
06-12-03, 06:13 AM
Fleet hospital team home from battle line
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 11, 2003 | Last updated 10:44 PM Jun. 10
NORFOLK -- When the Navy goes to war, you might expect its doctors and nurses to stay at sea.
In fact, the Navy's ``fleet hospitals'' are boots-on-the-ground medical complexes set up close to the front lines to treat the wounded almost immediately.
Eight members of Fleet Hospital Three returned Tuesday morning at the Norfolk International Airport, having worked closer to the battlefield in Operation Iraqi Freedom than any of their colleagues before.
The 300-member hospital team, based in Pensacola, Fla., spent three months in Kuwait and Iraq as part of the war effort. The risk of attack, especially from incoming missiles, was ever present, sailors said.
``We had to go to the bunkers 42 times,'' said Cmdr. Karen DiRenzo, an emergency room nursing supervisor at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center and casualty receiving supervisor for Fleet Hospital Three.
After the Navy recently decided to slim down its fleet hospital teams to make them more mobile, these sailors became the first to construct and operate an Expeditionary Medical Facility in a war zone, officials said.
After leaving northern Kuwait in late March, the 116-bed standing facility opened April 1 at Camp Viper near Jalibah in southern Iraq.
Within hours, its doctors and nurses were treating the war's injured inside tents and large shipping containers. DiRenzo said not a single American service member died in their care. By May 5, the fleet hospital admitted 478 patients and treated another 410 through its outpatient services.
``In years past, we used to use casualty-receiving hospital ships. They are very robust,'' said Capt. Martin L. Snyder, the head of the surgery department at Portsmouth Naval and commanding officer of Fleet Hospital Portsmouth.
``But our battlefields are moving farther and farther away from our ships. In Afghanistan, it was 800 miles to the coast,'' Snyder said. ``If we are truly to be as far forward as we can, we need to be lighter.''
His fleet hospital, also known as Fleet Hospital 15, deployed to northern Kuwait earlier this year. Nearly 270 sailors from Fleet Hospital 15 returned home May 5.
Fleet Hospital Three stretched across nine acres in Iraq. Its medical personnel included specialists not found among the battlefield hospital corpsmen and shock trauma physicians who labor at the scene of the wounded.
``A lot of the injuries came from accidents,'' DiRenzo said. ``Marines were just exhausted and sometimes they would just drive off the road, especially since they had to travel at night.''
The wife of a Coast Guard lieutenant commander and mother of two in Suffolk, DiRenzo also praised her colleagues, who were drawn from across the country and forced to gel into one makeshift unit.
``Everyone came together to get a very hard job done,'' she said.
News researcher Jake Hays contributed to this report.
Reach Matthew Dolan at mdolan@pilotonline.com or 446-2322.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=55326&ran=95239
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 11, 2003 | Last updated 10:44 PM Jun. 10
NORFOLK -- When the Navy goes to war, you might expect its doctors and nurses to stay at sea.
In fact, the Navy's ``fleet hospitals'' are boots-on-the-ground medical complexes set up close to the front lines to treat the wounded almost immediately.
Eight members of Fleet Hospital Three returned Tuesday morning at the Norfolk International Airport, having worked closer to the battlefield in Operation Iraqi Freedom than any of their colleagues before.
The 300-member hospital team, based in Pensacola, Fla., spent three months in Kuwait and Iraq as part of the war effort. The risk of attack, especially from incoming missiles, was ever present, sailors said.
``We had to go to the bunkers 42 times,'' said Cmdr. Karen DiRenzo, an emergency room nursing supervisor at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center and casualty receiving supervisor for Fleet Hospital Three.
After the Navy recently decided to slim down its fleet hospital teams to make them more mobile, these sailors became the first to construct and operate an Expeditionary Medical Facility in a war zone, officials said.
After leaving northern Kuwait in late March, the 116-bed standing facility opened April 1 at Camp Viper near Jalibah in southern Iraq.
Within hours, its doctors and nurses were treating the war's injured inside tents and large shipping containers. DiRenzo said not a single American service member died in their care. By May 5, the fleet hospital admitted 478 patients and treated another 410 through its outpatient services.
``In years past, we used to use casualty-receiving hospital ships. They are very robust,'' said Capt. Martin L. Snyder, the head of the surgery department at Portsmouth Naval and commanding officer of Fleet Hospital Portsmouth.
``But our battlefields are moving farther and farther away from our ships. In Afghanistan, it was 800 miles to the coast,'' Snyder said. ``If we are truly to be as far forward as we can, we need to be lighter.''
His fleet hospital, also known as Fleet Hospital 15, deployed to northern Kuwait earlier this year. Nearly 270 sailors from Fleet Hospital 15 returned home May 5.
Fleet Hospital Three stretched across nine acres in Iraq. Its medical personnel included specialists not found among the battlefield hospital corpsmen and shock trauma physicians who labor at the scene of the wounded.
``A lot of the injuries came from accidents,'' DiRenzo said. ``Marines were just exhausted and sometimes they would just drive off the road, especially since they had to travel at night.''
The wife of a Coast Guard lieutenant commander and mother of two in Suffolk, DiRenzo also praised her colleagues, who were drawn from across the country and forced to gel into one makeshift unit.
``Everyone came together to get a very hard job done,'' she said.
News researcher Jake Hays contributed to this report.
Reach Matthew Dolan at mdolan@pilotonline.com or 446-2322.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=55326&ran=95239