On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut and pasted
more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital

MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DAGGER, Tikrit, Iraq - To help remedy one of the many
problems the Iraqis face in rebuilding their nation, Coalition Forces donated
five ambulances to the Tikrit hospital, Feb. 23.

This donation will bring the Iraqis another step forward in their effort to
build a stable system of social services, said Capt. Chad Marley, brigade
surgeon for 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. One of the main
problems health care and emergency care workers were facing was the lack of
transportation for the sick and wounded. This donation will give the Salah Ad
Din province a better ambulance-to-person ratio.

“The people here needed ambulances to replace the older ones,” Marley said. “We
want to get them to a point where they have one ambulance for every 20,000
people.”

The province had ambulances before, but they were not up to standard for the
amount of work that was required of them, said Thamer Najim Abdulla, an
ambulance driver.

“Before we had ambulances from the old regime,” he said. “The ambulances we had
were not very fast, making it difficult for us to respond quickly during an
emergency. The new ambulances are great. I hope we can get more of them in the
future.”

Adnan Zidan Khalaf, chief of the Manager Directorate Office in Tikrit said
health care service workers and health ministry officials are very happy to have
the new vehicles, as it is the first time they have received any new kind of
transportation for emergencies since Saddam Hussein was in power.

Now emergency services will be more effective due to the acquisition of the
ambulances and a Joint Coordination Center for the dispatch of the services,
Khalaf said.

“We receive all the calls at one location,” Khalaf said. “It is much easier this
way, because we can react faster to provide first aid. It was much more
difficult to do that with the equipment we had before. If there is an emergency,
anyone can call for help at the provincial Joint Coordination Center.”
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John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."