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NATO Hospital Offers Top Notch Care in Taliban Heartland

27 August 2010 22:33 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Whether a soldier needs a cure for the common cold or brain surgery, the NATO hospital on Kandahar Airfield can handle it, APA reports quoting â€œThe Voice of Americaâ€.

This is one of Afghanistan’s most sophisticated hospitals, and it provides top medical care on the front line. Just minutes by helicopter from most conflict spots in the country’s south, the hospital saves the lives of 98 percent of the injured who come here.

Recently this hospital’s emergency room was filled with the cries of a three-year-old Afghan boy.

The trauma team rushes to their positions, quickly hooking monitors and other equipment to check the boy’s vital signs. He is lucky to be alive after stepping on a land mine outside his village. His 10-year-old brother died.

It is a familiar story for the staff of this military hospital on Kandahar Airfield, in Afghanistan’s south.

U.S. Navy Commander Michael Danenberg, a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine, estimates 20 to 30 percent of his patients are under the age of 12, and most have severe injuries.

"This is why I signed up with the Navy," Danenberg said. "I’ve been doing Navy emergency medicine for 19 years now. To me this has been the most fulfilling aspect of my 19-year career so far, the fact that I know I am doing it as close to the time of injury, in a combat zone, and being able to go from there," he said.