Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Sunday, March 20, 2005
Section:Nation/World; Page:11

By Edward Lee Pitts

BALAD RUZ, Iraq -- The 9-year-old deaf Iraqi girl with the short cropped black hair smiled while Col. Michael Peery peered into her ears using a medical flashlight as the girl's father and sister looked over the colonel's shoulder.

Across the room Capt. Michael Parker examined a coughing 6-month-old with a small swelling on his right cheek.

The 278th Regimental Combat Team medical workers were just beginning their weekly clinic, and the patients looked to the healers with hope-filled eyes. It seemed they believed miracle workers had come to town.

The two soldiers visited the more than 25 sick and wounded Iraqis during the five-hour clinic Wednesday at the city's downtown Joint Coordination Center operated by 1st Squadron's Apache Troop.

The 278th's Lt. Col. Kim Dees, a physician assistant from Cleveland, Tenn., said the clinic began in January when Apache soldiers asked him to come into town to look at a man in need of a wheelchair. Word got out about the visit, and a crowd greeted Lt. Col. Dees that day.

"I just said, 'Let's see them all,'" Lt. Col. Dees said. The clinic has now seen more than 500 Iraqis.

The patients, mainly children brought by their parents, began lining up early Wednesday, more than three hours before the 278th doctors arrived.

Many of the children looked like orphans out of Charles Dickens' novel "Oliver Twist," with dirty faces and tattered, mismatched clothing. The line included more than 50 Iraqis, many back for the second Wednesday in a row after a suspected roadside bomb halted the medical convoy last week, canceling the clinic.

Not all the patients could be seen.

Staff Sgt. Blake Baxter, of Ooltewah, had the unenviable task of weeding out returning patients for whom the doctors already had exhausted all treatment options.

"Having to tell a parent there is nothing we can do for their child is one of the hardest things I do here," Staff Sgt. Baxter said.

On Wednesday several desperate parents held aloft their mentally underdeveloped sons and daughters as any U.S. soldier stopped at the gate.

"They think America has some magic pill that will cure them," said Spc. Mike Hoback, 32.

Spc. Hoback, of Chattanooga, was one of several soldiers treated like a celebrity as he worked near the area where the line for medical treatment formed. He and other soldiers handed out candy, school supplies and stuffed animals to the children.

INSIDE THE CLINIC

For patients lucky enough to get inside, the doctors conducted examinations using a back room with a wooden conference table surrounded by wheeled chairs. Staff Sgt. Baxter, acting as the clinic's nurse, brought in patients two at a time, kept files for future reference and worked with the Iraqi police for crowd control.

Some patients arrived with medical records and X-rays from visits to Iraqi doctors. Col. Peery and Capt. Parker placed the X-rays on windowpanes, using sunlight to examine the images.

Developmental disabilities and congenital diseases dominated the day as the doctors examined multiple cases of hearing loss, birth defects and blood disorders. The doctors also encountered diseases long ago eradicated or controlled in the United States, such as dysentery, rickets and tuberculosis.

"It is a lot of textbook stuff you read about but never see in the States," said Col. Peery, an ear, nose and throat specialist from Corinth, Miss., who arrived in Iraq two weeks ago. Doctors serve three-month rotations in Iraq.

"It is a rude awakening," Col. Peery said.

He said many of the problems would have been treatable if the patients had received early intervention. Now many of these patients are case studies of what happens when an illness is allowed to progress untreated for years. Col. Peery said U.S. doctors would test a child with hearing problems long before he or she reaches the age of 10.

Members of the medical team also saw infected scrapes and bruises, a consequence of being left untreated for too long in an environment where trash and open sewers act like a greenhouse for germs.

The diagnosis and treatment instructions have to be filtered through translators, and explaining processes such as CT scans and MRIs in two languages slows down an already laborious effort.

Repeatedly the health workers told the patients to visit more advanced Baghdad hospitals where they can see specialists and receive tests. But such a trip is an expense often out of the reach of these residents.

Sometimes the patients refused to let the advice sink in. One father replied, "When can I see you again?' after Col. Peery told him his daughter needed additional help.

But the team liberally doled out creams, ointments, pills, liquids, bandages and swabs to the patients, and they taught several asthma sufferers how to use an inhaler.

Lt. Col. Dees said there are success stories. He said the members in the regiment raised money for a girl of about 3 or 4 to get her cleft palette surgically corrected.

"Her father brought her and put her right in my arms," Lt. Col. Dees said of the first meeting with the girl. "She just laid there and looked up at me with the big, dark camel eyes the children have here. I've got a picture of that I wouldn't sell for a billion dollars."

The ultimate solution would be to send some of the sick to the United States for treatment, soldiers said.

There is no official U.S. system set up for this, but Capt. Parker said he is working on getting several cases stateside. The process will include finding a doctor to perform the procedure, a hospital that will donate its facilities, a family to house the patient and a nongovernmental organization to pay travel expenses.

Lt. Col. Dees said the goal is to hand this clinic off to the doctors of Balad Ruz so the people will grow accustomed to seeking help from other Iraqis.

"We don't want to replace the physicians here, but work alongside them and then ease out and move over," he said. "Right now the confidence level the Iraqi people have in their doctors is low."

On Wednesday a pediatrician from Balad Ruz's only hospital helped out at the clinic for about an hour. Leaving with a stethoscope given to him by the 278th doctors, Dr. Khaled Sharaf Addeem said the city's hospital lacks basic equipment and supplies needed to diagnose illnesses.

So for now the patients will continue to come here. As the word spreads, Iraqis from neighboring villages are making the trek to Balad Ruz. Lt. Col. Dees said a similar clinic will begin soon in Mandila.

"When we started we had nothing to go by," Lt. Col. Dees said. "We have just kind of invented this as we went along. I'm having the time of my life."

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

ON THE WEB Photos by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika of the 278th Regimental Combat Team are available on the Chattanooga Times Free Press Web site.

Visit http://www .timesfreepress.com /kp.

U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika - Capt. Michael Parker, a member of the 278 th Regimental Combat Team, discusses health problems with an Iraqi woman. Members of the unit’s medical team saw more than 25 sick or wounded Iraqis last week at a clinic in Balad Ruz, Iraq.

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