Military engages stateside doctors in lifeline for kids from war zones

The trip to the United States takes several months as families seek approvals and documents.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Feb. 20, 2006.

Afghani newborn Zargana had her eyelids burned from her face in a fire, and her desperate parents took the girl to an American Army hospital. During a home raid in Baghdad, an Iraqi woman showed National Guardsmen her granddaughter, Noor, an ill baby with a purple pouch protruding from her back, prompting the soldiers to promise to help.

Noor is among the dozens of children plucked from their war-torn countries to receive care from civilian doctors on U.S. soil. Zargana is waiting for documents to clear so she can travel to the states for surgery. The two are part of an informal lifeline that has emerged between U.S. soldiers who encounter the children, military doctors stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and civilian doctors back home.

On one end of the line are people struggling to get health care in Iraq and Afghanistan who turn to American soldiers as the only hope for their ill or dying children.

In response to these pleas, the troops get military physicians involved to provide evaluations and other care while hospitals and service organizations in the United States are contacted for help.

Military personnel send e-mails to elected officials, charitable groups and hospitals searching for someone willing to donate medical care stateside. In the best-case scenarios, children and other civilians are flown to the United States and receive crucial, often life-saving, treatment at nonmilitary hospitals.

The process can take several months as families obtain approval from their governments and gather travel documents, but the coordinated efforts have meant happy endings for Noor and others like her.