WEEKEND EDITION
April 17 - 18, 2004
During the two-day drive through the desert from Kuwait to Baghdad, Army Reserve Maj. John Padgett knew that his mission to restart the Iraqi health care system wasn't going to be easy, but it still didn't prepare him for what he found.
"It was a public health nightmare," Padgett said. "There was unbelievable looting to the point where patients were dumped out of their beds onto the floor so that their mattresses could be stolen.
"Drugs and equipment were gone, and many of the hospitals were just empty shells."
Padgett arrived in the Middle East in March 2003 and spent 10 months working with the 460th Civil Affairs Battalion, an Army Reserve unit based in Abilene, Texas, charged with getting some of Baghdad's basic infrastructure back up and running following the first days of the war.
Padgett, a doctor and former special forces medic in Vietnam, moved to Las Vegas with his wife a few weeks after his return to the United States in January, and is helping to start the Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Henderson.
The Henderson college site is mostly made up of empty warehouses, but it is still more than Padgett and his unit had to work with in some of the hospitals in Baghdad.
"There was no clean water, no equipment and shortages of everything from cancer drugs to simple antibiotics and cough medicine," Padgett said.
There are now 35 hospitals, four public health clinics, two medical teaching institutes and water treatment plants operating in Baghdad. The unit was also involved in making sure that the animals at the Baghdad zoo were cared for.
"We rolled into Baghdad as some of the smoke from the first battles was starting to clear, but security remained an issue, and continues to be an issue today," Padgett said. "We'd pull into a hospital and leave our flak jackets and helmets with the security forces, and go inside to meet with Iraqi doctors.
"They'd be in ties and we'd be armed."
Padgett's unit and other coalition forces first established security teams using former Iraqi soldiers and police to protect the hospitals and the doctors and nurses working there.
"Some of the hospital staffs had taken up arms and were able to protect portions of hospitals from looters, but in a lot the only thing that was left were wires and broken equipment," Padgett said. "All the hospitals were named after Saddam (Hussein), so you had people trying to get in, and what they couldn't take they'd destroy."
Padgett visited all the hospitals in and around Baghdad, including the facilities at Abu Ghraib prison about 20 miles west of the city. For about six months last year the prison was home to the Nevada Army National Guard's 72nd Military Police Co.
The Henderson-based police unit found many of the same chaotic conditions at the prison that Padgett discovered in the hospitals and streets of Baghdad.
"We found children, sheep, wild dogs and fields of rubble and trash," said Daryl Keithley, a Las Vegas resident and first sergeant for the company that returned to Las Vegas in November.
Despite the war-torn environment, Padgett said that many of the Iraqi people, and especially the country's doctors, have shown incredible dedication and courage.
"A lot of Americans don't have good opinions of the Iraqi people because of the war, but many of the people over there are doing an amazing job," Padgett said. "Some of the doctors were sleeping on the floors of the hospitals, waking up and seeing patients.
"They didn't know if they would be compensated or not, but they went on treating patients."
Early on, Padgett said, there were problems gaining cooperation from doctors because to go to medical school, doctors had to be members of Saddam's Baath Party.
"Once it was clear that the regime wasn't going to survive, we started dealing with the doctors who were members of the Baath Party in name only," Padgett said.
Medical supplies and equipment were taken from Saddam's personal hospitals, which were used only by high-ranking Baath Party officials and their families. Those hospitals were on par with American and European facilities before the war, while the hospitals for other Iraqis were short on supplies, equipment and doctors, Padgett said.
"It felt really good to be able to take the things from Saddam's hospitals and put them in the hands of the people who needed it," Padgett said. "I remember bringing some bassinets and incubators to a hospital in Saddam City, where many of the Shiite Muslims lived.
"They were so happy just to have something as simple as a bassinet."
Padgett helped to edit the first few issues of the new Iraqi Journal of Medicine last fall, and believes that the seeds are there for Iraqi doctors to be welcomed into the international medical community.
Because of United Nations travel restrictions, the doctors in Iraq have been effectively cut off from much of the medical knowledge that has been gained since 1991.
"Other than smuggled-in books and texts, they really have had no contact," Padgett said. "In a couple of years I think they will begin to catch up. Certainly a lot still needs to be done, but the changes over the last year have been incredible.
"There are still some hospitals there that I wouldn't want to take my puppy to, but now there are also some that I wouldn't be ashamed or afraid to take my family to.""
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