Healing is done best close to home.
In a brief round of speeches and exchange of plaques Friday, the Canadian Forces and Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre announced that Thunder Bay‘s hospital is designated to treat injured military personnel from the region.
In previous conflicts, injured military personnel returned to military hospitals in Canada. None of those military-only hospitals are still open, explained Dr. Jack Remus, a semi-retired orthopedic surgeon who serves as the honourary lieutenant-colonel for 18 Field Ambulance. He is a former commanding officer of the city‘s medical reserve unit.
“Like any work-related injuries, people do an awful lot better when they‘re treated close to home,” Remus said yesterday about modern soldiers serving overseas in Afghanistan or other hot spots.
“There are many, many soldiers from Thunder Bay and the surrounding communities that are serving over in Afghanistan, that are serving with the Armed Forces, with the potential to get injured,” said Remus.
In the case of significant injuries – usually to the legs, but sometimes to the chest or head – the region‘s military personnel would be initially treated at the military base in Kandahar before being returned to Thunder Bay Regional. With major injuries in Afghanistan, soldiers are stabilized at the Kandahar base before being sent on to a U.S. military hospital in Germany and then back here.
Surgeons with all the relevant specialties for injured soldiers work at Thunder Bay Regional, as do rehabilitation specialists and psychologists who can treat post traumatic stress disorder, said Remus.
“We can look after our own people here,” he said.
The exception is if a soldier sustains serious burns, in which case they would likely be sent to a burn unit in Winnipeg.
If a Northwestern Ontario member of the Canadian Forces is injured, Thunder Bay Regional‘s chief of staff will be contacted and notified of the type of injuries.
He will then co-ordinate with the required specialists at the hospital, Remus said.
While two Lakehead soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in 2006 – three if you count Pte. Robert Costall, who was born in Thunder Bay and has family here – none have come home with more than strains, said Remus, though he noted some have shown signs of post traumatic stress.
As well as being honourary colonel of the local medical reserve unit, Remus does medical examinations of local soldiers before they are deployed and once they return.
Col. Kristiana Stevens, health service reserve advisor to the military‘s director of general health services, also commended Thunder Bay Regional for not only stepping up to care for injured military personnel, but for allowing its medical staff to serve in Afghanistan.
Of the four doctors and nurses who have served at the Kandahar base‘s hospital, at least two have been back twice.
“That‘s exceptional,” said Stevens. “I don‘t think there‘s another community in the country that can stand up and say they‘re allowed that to happen or encouraged that to happen.”
She presented two of those doctors, David Puskas and Mark Thibert, with the General Service Medal for their time in Afghanistan. Both also hold the rank of major in 18 Field Ambulance, and Thibert is the unit‘s current commanding officer.
