How do you say bedpan in Arabic?
"Salem hospital prepares for Libyan fighters; Religious, cultural concerns considered" October 29, 2011|By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff
Doctors and nurses will wear names tags in Arabic. A prayer room is being designed with help from an imam, a Muslim spiritual leader, who heads the Salem area mosque and happens to be a Libyan native.
And all staff at the Spaulding Hospital North Shore facility in Salem have also undergone intensive cultural training about the customs and religious practices of their new patients, who are scheduled to arrive today: 25 fighters who were seriously wounded in the armed struggle that ended with the fall of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy.
For more than a week, Spaulding administrators have painstakingly worked out dozens of details with officials from the US Department of State and the Defense Department for the fighters’ arrival.
“We have done things like a welcome letter in Arabic to the patients, so they are aware of what to expect in the first couple of days,’’ said Maureen Banks, Spaulding’s chief operating officer and its point person for many of the details.
The hospital has also brought in teams of translators, including ones specially certified in medical terms to help explain medications, therapies, and other treatments to the severely wounded fighters. Request for medical care in the United States was requested by Libya’s National Transitional Council, which has been working to form a new government in the country since Khadafy’s ouster, US officials said.
The medical care is being paid for by the transitional council and not by Spaulding, hospital officials said.
After they touch down at Logan International Airport in Boston, the fighters will be whisked to Salem, where hospital administrators have readied a private unit within the 120-bed facility.
Hospital administrators were concerned that their fragile new patients, flying halfway around the world on a military transport from a desert climate, might be taken aback by the wild scene that is Salem on Halloween weekend.
“We have communicated to the flight staff to give them some explanation of this celebration,’’ Banks said. “We pictured them coming to Salem, seeing snow, and then seeing people dressed in Halloween costumes.’’
The youngest patient is 17 and will be accompanied by a parent. Their wounds are substantial, including complex spinal trauma from gunshots, nerve injuries, paralyzed limbs, and some amputations, said Dr. Ross Zafonte, Spaulding’s vice president of research, education, and medical affairs.
“It’s very likely these folks will stay at least a month, depending on the complexity of injury,’’ Zafonte said. “Our goal is to return them to their families, their culture, and their country as soon as they are able to do so.’’
And what if one or more of the fighters asks for political asylum to remain in this country? It’s a question hospital administrators said they have considered.
“We can’t promote or prevent application for asylum,’’ said Spaulding’s president, David Storto. Any asylum application, he said, would fall to the Department of State to decide.
Spaulding has a long history of research for the Defense Department into treatment of serious battle wounds, from blast injuries to amputations, and the hospital network has also cared for several severely injured soldiers, at the government’s request, Zafonte said.
But there was another unlikely tie that led the government to Spaulding for the Libyan medical mission. Years ago, Spaulding was locked in legal battles with state officials when the Central Artery Tunnel project, known as the Big Dig, wanted to take Spaulding’s Boston land by eminent domain to make way for the massive project.
Spaulding lost its lawsuit, but ultimately worked out a settlement with the Big Dig.
The Big Dig’s project manager, Peter Zuk, went on to open a consulting firm that now does work in Libya. When Zuk was called for help in finding medical care in the United States, he thought of Spaulding, Storto said.
In addition to their physical injuries, the Libyan fighters will probably have some substantial psychological wounds, said Dr. Michael Grodin, codirector of the Boston Center for Immigrant and Refugee Health at Boston Medical Center, which has treated hundreds of survivors from war-torn countries, including Libya.
“They often have hypervigilance,’’ Grodin said. “They’re always on edge. They can’t sleep, and they can have flashbacks, sometimes triggered by the sound of sirens or by hearing a car backfire.’’
Sounds like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
While Grodin is not involved in care for the Libyan group, he said the news that the patients will be cared for together in a private unit will probably help their psychological healing. “Presumably there is a common experience, and the group dynamic will be supportive,“ he said.
“Most people are remarkably resilient,’’ he said, “and coming as a group will make them more resilient.’’
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Also see: Far from war, Libyans start to heal, talk
No offense, but I'm sick of war stories.
