The dilemma of caring for wounded Iraqis (New Report)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Iraqis get the same initial treatment as U.S. and coalition forces, but not the follow-up care

Originally published June 4, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq // The young soldier would die, a fate ensured by the bullet that entered his right eye and shredded his brain. But unlike many other patients on the beds and gurneys of the U.S. Army's main combat hospital, this one would die quickly, without any heroic attempts to open his skull or take over his vital functions with machinery, without the chance to remain alive until his family or friends could gather.

If the doctors thought he had a chance of survival, they might have treated him differently. But the soldier's medical care was not determined solely by his injury, but also by his nationality. He was Iraqi.

The evolving nature of combat in Iraq - the persisting violence and the increasing responsibility heaped on Iraqi army and police forces - is creating a logistical and ethical tightrope for the American medical centers in Iraq, which exist to treat injured American service members but are seeing large numbers of Iraqi patients brought to their doors.

Military doctors and nurses try to remain blind to the nationality of each patient. But they cannot ignore the conditions on the ground, including the huge disparity in follow-up care available to American and Iraqi patients.

more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.iraqmedicine04jun04,0,3318572.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

[acmavm]

1. American policy is to let the Iraqis who are fighting for them to die

because they receive inadequate, or no, treatment if they are injured?

Sheesh, would you fight for America and its agenda if you knew you were an expendable commodity?

[Briar]

2. How is it a dilemma

for any doctor who takes medical ethics seriously? Or does joining the armed forces cancel medical ethics? Like the doctors who help out with torture at Guantanamo?

Everything this criminal war touches it corrupts.