Army to send N.E. medical workers to Iraq

The US Army Reserve is preparing to deploy the first combat hospital unit from New England to the battlefields of Iraq, drawing personnel from hospitals and medical offices across the region.

A total of 473 doctors, nurses, medics, and support personnel from the 399th Combat Support Hospital, based in Taunton, are scheduled to leave June 10 for one to three months of training before the unit spends at least one year in Iraq, Army officials said yesterday. Although precise numbers were not available yesterday, the reservists are overwhelmingly from New England.

Where in Iraq the unit will be based has not been announced.

With daily headlines of an insurgency that isn't ending and with mounting US casualties, the reservists are steeling themselves for the mission.

``You see death every day, or frequently, at a community hospital, but you don't tend to see it in 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds," said Major Paul Zaborski, 44, an emergency room nurse at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth who will be deployed. ``It's a little different when it's an 18-year-old and the age of your son, versus someone who's 99 years old."

South Shore Hospital in Weymouth is losing two nurses and a nursing assistant to the deployment. Zaborski said he knows 399th nurses from other area hospitals who will be dispatched overseas, including some from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Medical Center, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

``We have some top-notch people deploying with us," Zaborski said yesterday.

One of them, Reserve Colonel Joseph Blansfield, is a nurse who coordinates trauma services at Boston Medical Center, which treats many of the city's gunshot victims. That hospital is losing six employees to the 399th's deployment, including five nurses and one radiology technician, said spokeswoman Ellen Berlin.

``This is the largest single deployment that people can remember," Berlin said yesterday. ``All of a sudden, the war isn't so far away."

The loss of Blansfield is significant, she said, but ``the silver lining is that he knew he was going to be deployed, and there was time to ID and train someone to do his work while he's away."

Quincy Medical Center is losing a nursing technology manager and a radiology technologist, said spokeswoman Denise Spillane.

While the deployment will disrupt family lives, several hospital officials contacted yesterday said their institutions will be able to absorb the temporary loss of a few physicians and nurses.

Jerry Berger, a spokesman for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said that hospital officials will not know which medical staff members have been deployed until individual employees apply for leaves of absence. ``No one has applied yet," he said.

However, Berger said that even if a large number of doctors and nurses do apply for leave, the hospital will be able to easily fill those positions with temporary employees.

The combat support hospital, which is the present-day equivalent of the former mobile Army surgical hospital, or MASH, unit, is highly mobile and designed to treat everything from devastating wounds from roadside bombs to cuts and bruises and everyone from American soldiers to Iraqi army and police, civilians, and detainees.

``We can function out of tents, individually, all sorts of ways," said Zaborski, a 25-year military veteran. ``It's almost like a Lego set."

The unit is flexible, Zaborski said, but ``you don't have all the services that you have stateside. It's not like you pick up a phone and call the neurosurgeon. You work with what you have."

Combat hospitals from other parts of the country have been sent to Iraq, but the 399th will be the first from New England to be deployed to the war, said Linda Jeleniewski, spokeswoman for the Army Reserve command in the region.

The unit will be composed of about 60 doctors, 100 nurses, 200 medics, and the remainder in support roles such as ambulance drivers, laundry services , and administration, Jeleniewski said. The doctors will be pulled from across the country, but the nurses, medics, and support personnel will be primarily from New England, she said.

The doctors and nurses must be working in a hospital or private practice in their civilian jobs, according to Jeleniewski. The support personnel do not have to be working at medical facilities.

Before going to Iraq, the unit will undergo intensive training to prepare them for life in a war zone.

Zaborski, who has three sons and five grandchildren, said he has never been in combat. ``I feel I'm prepared, but you never know until you get there," he said. ``But what I bring back will also benefit South Shore Hospital. It's kind of a win-win for the military and South Shore Hospital."

The recent news of his deployment, Zaborski said, probably has been harder on his wife than on him. ``We don't talk about it much," he said, ``but now that it's getting close it's kind of setting in."

Lieutenant Bill Carron, 36, of Braintree, an operating room nurse at South Shore Hospital, gained field-hospital experience during the first Persian Gulf War but said he expects that the intensity of the current conflict will make this deployment much different.

``I'm at a state now where I'm ready, and I'm ready to make other people ready," said Carron, an 18-year military veteran who added that he is committed to helping soldiers return alive to their families.

Carron said his job will be one of widely varied, fast-paced support, including helping with triage, deciding whether surgery is needed, making sure equipment is ready in the operating room, and providing blood, medications, and anything else that is needed.

Despite his confidence in his skills, Carron said, ``I'm somewhat apprehensive, especially given the situation the way it is in Iraq right now. There are bad things happening. Hopefully, I'll be able to return home."

Suzanne Smalley of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at macquarrie@globe.com.