Based on the experience of Air Force personnel at an expeditionary military hospital in Iraq, military hospitals should be prepared with the proper staff, training and equipment to treat injured and noninjured children who require medical care, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Military hospitals are likely to encounter injured children as wars move away from the battlefield and into civilian territories, according to background information in the article. Children sometimes serve as soldiers or are used as human shields. In addition, because war disrupts medical facilities in the affected area, children with other injuries or illnesses may seek medical care at U.S. military hospitals as well. When U.S. and coalition forces entered Iraq in 2003, Iraqi civilian hospitals were already understaffed and lacked the supplies and infrastructure needed to effectively care for citizens. From early in the conflict, medical care was offered to injured civilians in cases of severe injury, and hospital commanders could approve care for children with medical needs that could not be handled by the Iraqi system.

Lt. Col. Christopher P. Coppola, U.S.A.F., M.C., and colleagues at the Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, reported on the children treated at one level III (medical facility in a combat area) hospital in Balad, Iraq, from January 2004 to May 2005. The 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital is approximately 40 miles north of Baghdad and consists of a series of tents with concrete floors, linked by a corridor. The facility has a staff of 420 and can accommodate up to 24 intensive care unit beds and 80 additional beds; up to six surgeries can be performed at once.

"Our primary mission as a level III hospital was to provide evaluation, resuscitation and surgical care to combat-injured troops," the authors write. "However, our facility experienced 'mission c
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JAMA and Archives Journals
4-Sep-2006