Word: ghraib
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...most cases, U.S. frontline troops in Iraq have received top-quality medical care, producing the lowest death rate of any military conflict in history. But the care at Abu Ghraib has often been at the other end of the scale of humane treatment, at least until recently. Although the prison was at times crowded with as many as 7,000 detainees, no U.S. doctor was in residence for most of 2003. Military officials say a few Iraqi doctors saw to minor illnesses but not major traumas. In a statement obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, an Army medic based...
...medical understaffing and under-stocking of Abu Ghraib were felt most acutely after the prison came under shelling by insurgents. A doctor who served there recalled an attack last April when a mortar landed on an outdoor pen holding prisoners, killing at least 16 outright and wounding more than 60. Former prison personnel described how those attacks produced pandemonium, with panicked prisoners seeking treatment from what were at times very few, poorly equipped medical workers. "When somebody died, we just took out their chest tube and inserted it into another, living person," said National Guard Captain Kelly Parrson, a physician...
...estimate of an officer who frequently visited Abu Ghraib and is a psychologist, some 5% of the prisoners suffered from mental illness. Yet, according to Dr. David Auch, commander of the reserve company supporting medical operations at the prison in 2003, for long periods there was no one to treat mental-health problems among the inmates, no doctor qualified to prescribe antipsychotic drugs and other medications that could have calmed mentally ill detainees and perhaps diminished the guards' use of physical restraints. Often the only psychiatrists or psychologists on site were part of so-called behavioral-science consultation teams...
Among the most disturbed prisoners at Abu Ghraib was a man--probably psychotic, according to a medical staff member--who habitually coated his body in fecal matter and repeatedly tried to harm himself--for instance, by banging his head against cell walls. At one point, Auch says, medics asked his advice on restraining the prisoner, reporting that they had used a helmet to protect his head and improvised padded gloves and plastic handcuffs to secure his arms. The medics wanted to know whether using a tether would be appropriate, and Auch recalls that he gave his assent, saying, "The priority...
While the deficiencies in medical care at Abu Ghraib have gone largely unreported, the glare of the prison-guard scandal has compelled the U.S. military to launch major reforms. In the past year, the military says it has established a 52-bed hospital at the prison, staffed by 200 highly trained medical personnel. The number of detainees in U.S. custody is currently about 3,000. (The interim Iraqi government also houses prisoners there.) No date has been set, but the military would like to close the facility altogether, officially to avoid more insurgent attacks but, what's more, to wipe...