Helina Abdular is cuddling a stuffed animal she calls "mraawi" (duck) while sitting beside her mother. She looks like any other 5-year-old Kurdish girl on the streets here, except for the bandage on her right eye.
"I appreciate help from South Korean doctors here. They saved my daughter's eyesight. I hope that they will stay longer here," her mother, Sabieha, says in a hospital inside the compound of South Korea's Zaytun Division.
Last week, Helina had a burn on her eye in a car accident and went to a hospital in downtown Irbil. Her eye swelled because of infection, even after medical treatment, but she was lucky to get a medical coupon from a Kurdish interpreter working for the 2,850-strong Zaytun Division. On Thursday, two South Korean military surgeons operated on her.
One disinfected her burned eyesocket and gave her proper medical treatment, while the other provided cosmetic restoration surgery for her.
"She might have lost her eyesight if she came here only a little later," says Army Major Bae Hee-soon, chief of the medical nurse division at the Zaytun hospital. "A Kuridish doctor just stitched her eyesocket without emergency treatment."
Helina is one of the 42,726 patients who have so far received medical treatment from the Zaytun-run hospital since Nov. 27, 2004.
The hospital, composed of 19 doctors, 15 nurses and 32 paramedics, runs 13 departments for local residents, including oriental medicine and acupuncture.
"There are a lot of cross-eyed people and babies with cleft lips here because of common marriages among cousins. I am happy to see them smile when they leave the hospital after surgery and treatment," says Air Force Lt. Yoo Jae-eun.
Since she arrived here in early May, Yoo has been fulfilling her life-long dream of helping the ill as a military nurse in a foreign country.
She volunteered to serve in a country about 8,400 kilometers away from her husband in South Korea. They married only a year ago, but her husband, an Air Force captain, did not hesitate to let her go work in a place where she is needed the most for six months.
Initially, Yoo had difficultly in adjusting to life here because of such barriers as religion, language and customs. By picking up some essential Kurdish words and learning their culture through frequent contacts, she could confirm what she believes is the most important thing in life: love, according to her.
"When I help them recover from illness with all my heart, I can feel how grateful they are to us. Unable to understand what they say, I can understand the love they feel for me," she says.
In Irbil, all local public hospitals usually close at 2 p.m., a legacy of the decades-old socialist system, and some doctors practice medicine in their own clinics until 8 p.m. No emergency treatment is provided after this.
"The Zaytun hospital is the only emergency medical center in Irbil, so this is the place they can turn to when they get injured at night," Bae says. "However, they are slowly but surely changing in attitude because of the need to learn advanced medical skills from us." An increasing number of Kurdish doctors and nurses are learning about emergency treatment and how to use advanced medical machines at the Zaytun hospital, Bae adds.
Since December 2004, 75 Kurdish doctors and nurses have completed an advanced medical program, and 46 have finished a special course on how to treat severely burned people, according to the hospital.
Beaming a bright smile, Helina raises her mraawi above her head and then waves it toward visitors. "I am so glad that I will be able to see this world with my own two eyes," she says.
Irbil, Sept. 9 (Yonhap New)
Zaytun hospital at forefront of helping Iraqis |
