WP: For Iraqi Soldiers, A Medical Morass-Lack of Facilities Leaves Wounded To Seek Own Care

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501236.html?hpid=topnews

For Iraqi Soldiers, A Medical Morass
Lack of Facilities Leaves Wounded To Seek Own Care

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 6, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Mohammed Mizher Massen was a different man on the morning of Feb. 21. His muscles filled out his Iraqi army uniform. His posture radiated the confidence of a soldier who had helped capture insurgents. And his heart swelled: In a few hours, after his unit finished its shift guarding a Baghdad construction project, he was going to propose to his girlfriend.

Then the bomb in a cooking oil can on the roadside blew up, shredding his left leg and marking him with a constellation of shrapnel.

Now 1st Sgt. Massen, 22, is a one-legged man whose brothers carry him from his bed, where he has dreams of loud explosions, to his computer, where he researches prosthetic legs. He spends his $460 monthly soldier's salary on the $3,400 in medical expenses that he has accrued.

As the U.S. military prepares for an eventual handover of security duties to Iraqi forces, more of Iraq's 120,000 soldiers are advancing to the front lines of the war, and more are being wounded. But because there are no Iraqi military hospitals, thousands have been left to the mercy of overtaxed and corrupt civilian hospitals and a military compensation system paralyzed by red tape and disorganization, according to soldiers, family members, doctors and military officials. Many, feeling abandoned, turn to their families for help.

"I was fighting and going into combat missions for three years. When I was wounded, I was thrown out to my house," said Massen, a baby-faced man who slumped over a table, eyes downcast, during an interview at a Baghdad restaurant. "They did not provide me crutches or a wheelchair. They provided me with nothing."

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[Truthseeker013]

1. WP: For Iraqi soldiers, a Medical Morass-Lack of Facilities Leaves Wounded To Seek Own Care

Amazing. The Guv'mint manages to screw over two armies at once.

[Joe Fields]

2. dupe