THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020577
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
All is quiet on Camp Pleso.
Mortar shells drop less than 100 miles from the tiny tent hospital outside Zagreb, Croatia, but the sound doesn't carry to the Navy doctors stationed there.
Thousands of refugees flee nearby Bosnia in terror and cower in abandoned chicken coops, but their struggle isn't seen.
The only sign of the escalated war is an extra security guard who stands at the front gate.
``We've not had any personal threat, nothing directed at us,'' Navy Capt. Gregg Parker, commanding officer of the Portsmouth-based Fleet Hospital 5, said in a telephone interview Thursday.
``Our personal safety appears to be secure, yet we understand we're in historic times as far as the direction of this war.''
It's been three months since Parker and about 230 other Navy doctors, nurses and corpsmen came to the Zagreb field hospital, charged with treating the U.N. peacekeepers in all of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Since arriving in August, the medics - 56 of them from Portsmouth Naval Hospital - have treated more than 6,500 U.N. troops who became ill or were wounded in the 3-year-old civil war.
But the role of the field hospital has come into question in recent weeks as U.N. diplomats prepare for a possible withdrawal from the war-torn region. It is unclear what would happen to the hospital should the U.N. forces pull out.
Plans for a $2.7 million permanent medical facility on the Camp Pleso compound have been put on hold while the United Nations members debate their future presence.
The debate comes as rebel Serbs press forward to an almost certain victory, seizing key strongholds in Bihac, a U.N. safe haven about 80 miles south of Zagreb.
For the men and women stationed at Camp Pleso, the renewed fighting has heightened the intensity of serving in a region of war.
The threat has, at times, restricted the medics to the compound. It forced them to wear protective flak jackets and headgear during last week's NATO air raids.
Ironically, the fighting has caused a drop in the hospital's workload.
The hostilities have forced many of the peacekeepers to take cover in bunkers and stay put. About 400 of the U.N. forces are being held hostage by the Serbs.
Parker said he anticipates the number of patients will increase once there is a breakthrough in the siege on Bihac.
Also unresolved is whether the hospital will be called to help the 2,000 wounded men and women who crowd a civilian hospital in Bihac.
Three months ago, the Navy hospital was granted permission from the Defense Department to send medics into the field to treat refugees huddled on the border between Bosnia and Croatia. The team treated more than 1,500 refugees during the 12-day mission.
Parker said renewed fighting outside Bihac canceled any additional trips to help the refugees.
The workload at the hospital peaked in mid-October when 35 critically injured peacekeepers were admitted. In that group was a team of Australians whose truck had run over a land mine.
One of the peacekeepers went into a coma after shrapnel pierced his lung and heart. But he recovered and has since been sent home.
``It was truly, truly one of those miracles of medicine,'' Parker said. ``It was a miracle he got here at all. Then we opened his chest and sewed his heart.
``He walked out of here 10 days ago.''
Parker said stories like the one of the Australian engineer are what his staff will take home when they return to the United States in February. ``I think everyone is pleased that they came and are pleased with what they have accomplished,'' Parker said. ``They'll be happy when they go home. But they'll go home knowing they made a difference.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Capt. Gregg S. Parker, right, commands Fleet Hospital 5 in Zagreb,
Croatia. The medics - including 56 from Portsmouth Naval Hospital -
have treated more than 6,500 U.N. troops.
by CNB