Traffic at military hospital tells tale of Taliban toll

KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- If there is a gauge by which the toll of the Taliban can be measured, it is here at the military hospital tucked just off the runway at the Kandahar Air Field.

The Role 3 medical facility, a collection of tents and aging, low-lying buildings, treated more patients in July than any other unit of its kind in Afghanistan or Iraq.

That is partly because the security situation in Iraq is improving. But it is also attributable to the increasing number of people -- soldiers and civilians, adults and children -- arriving at the Kandahar base with war injuries.

The exact numbers of casualties are not made public because the military doesn't want the insurgents to know just what kind of damage they have inflicted.

But Lt. Col. Scott McLeod, the health-services support commanding officer, estimates there has been a year-over-year increase in "patient volume" of about 20 percent to 30 percent.

"Most of our patients who come in as trauma patients have been exposed to either a blast injury from an IED (improvised explosive device) or some other explosive event, or a penetrating trauma from gunshot wounds or shrapnel or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) or things like that," McLeod said.

"So we see amputations of arms and legs, we see penetrating trauma to the belly or the chest. And because we are also the neurosurgical capability for all of RC (Regional Command) South, we see a lot of head trauma here as well. And that again is also blunt trauma -- blast trauma as well as penetrating trauma from gunshot wounds."

The records of all of those patients are kept in a U.S. database called the Joint Theater Trauma System, which lists every person who passes through a military hospital in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"For the month of July, for all of the reporting facilities, we had the highest number of casualties coming into our facility," McLeod said.

The increase is not attributable to a corresponding climb in casualties among Canadians. In fact, the military says the number of Canadians hurt during their tactical operations is on a slight decline.

"There are increased numbers of Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police casualties which would, from my perspective, be attributable to their increased role in operations," said Capt. Chris Quinlan, a staff operations officer in the current operations branch.

"I have a hard time saying there is any success or anything positive related to casualties. But I would say it's attributable to the fact that they (the Afghans) are doing their job better. They are going places they never would have gone before and taking a lead role that they would not have taken before."

There is also an acknowledgment that the Taliban are more aggressive this year than they have been in the past and more civilians have been caught in the crossfire, or have accidentally walked into a trap set for coalition forces.

The Role 3 squeezes many highly trained medical professionals into tight quarters. It boasts general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgeons, critical-care internal-medicine specialists, critical-care nurses, a radiologist, psychologists, emergency physicians, family physicians, lab technicians, X-ray technicians and a host of others.

Despite the increase in patients, the specialists are here in about the same numbers as they were last year.

But McLeod says he and his staff have found a way of coping: "We work hard."

And most people who have been treated are not allowed to linger.

"If our hospital is full, we have to transfer patients out," McLeod said.

Coalition troops who need more care are quickly sent to hospitals in Europe. And Afghans are moved to the local ANA medical facility.

So, unless Afghans are in critical condition, they will be delivered in short order into the hands of their own doctors. That is true of both Afghan military personnel and civilians. And it is true of the large number of children who come in as victims of the conflict.

"These are the innocent people of any war and it's very traumatizing on a lot of nursing staff and the clinicians that are looking after kids on a daily basis," McLeod said, "but these are medical professionals that know how to look after patients whether those patients are here or back home."

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(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)