Mobile Medical Truck Trains Healthcare Professionals Throughout Iraq

Multi-National Force - Iraq ^ | Rick Haverinen

[SandRat]

A medical equipment training truck refurbished in June by Gulf Region Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, will soon be returned to the Iraqi Ministry of Health. The vehicle can visit remote Primary Healthcare Centers and hospitals across Iraq, enabling technicians to be instructed how to operate and maintain X-ray, dental and laboratory equipment. (USACE photo by H. Al Taie)

BAGHDAD — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Gulf Region Division (GRD) renovated a mobile medical equipment training facility here in June for use by health care providers and technicians at Primary Healthcare Centers (PHC) and hospitals across Iraq.

"Originally it was a simple blood laboratory and X-ray truck," said Mohamad Husam, Operations, Maintenance and Sustainment division, GRD, "but we added the dental chair and additional blood work lab equipment."

The 40-by-8-foot truck has state-of-the-art medical equipment, including a dental chair and a laboratory behind the driver's cab. An X-ray machine capable of making images of a patient either standing or lying on a table is in the back of the truck.

At the entrance door in the middle is an autoclave, a computer and equipment to acquire the images made by the X-ray "computed radiography" process, which uses large flat cassettes of film coated with a barium compound instead of silver.

"The key mission of this vehicle is to go out to the remote Primary Healthcare Centers and conduct operations and maintenance training for the maintenance staff at the health clinics," said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Joseph Tuite, GRD's director of the Operations, Maintenance and Sustainment Branch.

The truck is also something of a mobile billboard as about every square millimeter of space on both sides is covered with large graphics designed by GRD artist Leo Zubritsky.

The rolling instructional workshop has most of the sophisticated medical equipment going into 133 newly-built PHC and 44 renovated hospitals, the construction of which had been managed by GRD, and then delivered to the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

Seventeen of the 133 PHC were identified by GRD for follow-on maintenance for a wide variety of issues such as medical equipment installation, sufficient clean water supply, and wall cracks. The $16.1 million budget for multiple contracts to correct those issues also includes a portion for training Iraqi personnel to operate, maintain and repair the medical equipment that comes with the newly-constructed or renovated healthcare facilities.

"The medical facilities in Iraq have had high turnover of trained technicians who can care for their equipment," said Steve Rivera, deputy director of GRD's reconstruction division. "We hope this mobile teaching lab will attract new personnel to fill long-standing vacancies."

The original truck already had an examination table, laboratory equipment and computed radiology X-ray equipment on board.

The OMS Branch repaired and improved the vehicle by adding a dental chair with vacuum, supply and waste water lines, plus additional dental and laboratory instruments. A laboratory sink has hot and cold running water and two on-board generators supply the electricity if no power lines are nearby.

The new work was completed for less than $30,000.

"This is a key capacity development effort," Tuite said. "The U.S. government constructed numerous health care clinics throughout the country. Now we're continuing that process by providing additional maintenance training for the Iraqis so they can maintain their own equipment to improve the healthcare for this country after the U.S. government leaves."

[SandRat]

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