Military hospital expands capacity

FRANKFURT -- Medical staff at a US military hospital in southwest Germany are expanding bed capacity to care for scores of American soldiers wounded in Iraq, including many in the assault on Fallujah, officials said yesterday.

A plane with 53 wounded soldiers arrived from Iraq yesterday morning and another with 49 wounded was expected to arrive last evening at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, spokeswoman Marie Shaw said.

''We are very busy," Shaw said. ''We have seen an increase of patient arrivals since the outbreak of the Fallujah conflict."

On Wednesday, 64 wounded were brought in.

The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense, at least in some areas, than the military had initially indicated.

Since the offensive started Monday, 18 US troops and five Iraqi government soldiers have been killed, said Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the First Marine Division. He also said 69 American service members and 34 Iraqi troops had been wounded.

Shaw said she did not know exactly how many of the wounded at Landstuhl were hurt in Fallujah because the hospital typically doesn't note such details. ''It's hard to tell," Shaw said. ''We don't differentiate."

Landstuhl has long been a destination for wounded from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and usually treats between 30 and 50 injured military personnel per day, Shaw said.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Jordan, a physician at the hospital's Deployed Warrior Center that assesses incoming wounded after their six-hour plane trip, said the majority of injuries were ''significant, but not major."

''We've had more cases of bullet wounds than usual, though some have also suffered blast wounds from rocket-propelled grenades," he said.

There were several intensive-care cases involving brain or spinal injuries or traumatic amputation of limbs, he said. Four such patients were brought in yesterday morning on the first plane and four more were expected on the second plane, he said.

Jordan said the staff was coping well with the workload.

''We have had some people calling and volunteering to come in from other bases to help out," Jordan said.

He called yesterday ''probably one of the busiest days in quite some time" since he began working at the hospital in 2002.

''We are on contingency mode, a 60-hour workweek," he said.

Two more planeloads of wounded were expected to arrive today.

The hospital was expanding capacity to cope with the additional patients, Shaw said.

''We have expanded our intensive-care unit here with about 10 more beds, and we have expanded our medical surgical wards with about 40 more beds," she said.

The hospital, the largest US military medical facility outside the United States, now has 27 intensive-care beds. In all, it is normally equipped with 162 beds, the hospital's website says, with an expansion capability of up to 310 beds. The center also provides specialized care for the more than 250,000 additional American military personnel and their families based in Europe.