Medical team completes work in Romania, prepares for move to Bulgaria

Aug 31, 2009
Joint Task Force-East Public Affairs Office

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MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU, Romania — U.S. Army Capt. Myrna B. Howson, R.N., assigned to the 212th Combat Support Hospital in Kaiserslautem, Germany, checks the blood pressure of Romanian woman from the village of Nicolae Balcescu August 27. The humanitarian civil assistance team screened an average of 100 people per day in the eight villages they visited. (Department of Defense photo by Army Pfc. Charles J. Thompson)

ISTRIA, Romania — U.S. Army optometrist Capt. John W. Cary examines a child's eyes July 28 ata schoolhouse here as part of a European Command's humanitarian civil assistance program. The military medical professionals provided health education and screening to citizens as well as giving dental, eye, pediatric and primary health care examinations. (Department of Defense photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Marla R. Keown)

MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU, Romania — A 14-person bi-lateral U.S.-Romanian military medical team conducting humanitarian civil assistance missions visited the Nicolae Balcescu village Aug. 27 and completed the last of their eight-village tour in eastern Romania as part of Joint Task Force-East (JTF-East).

The HCA team consists of 11 U.S. military and three Romanian service members who have been working with local medical professionals and civic leaders in selected villages since early July. The team provided medical, dental and optometry screenings and health education to people of all ages living in the rural villages.

"These missions allow us to get into the communities," said JTF-East Commander Col. Gary R. Russ. "We develop relationships with the Romanian military easily, but this gives us an opportunity to integrate with the communities and actually help them." Representatives from U.S. Army Europe, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense and local county medical officials assessed and selected the eight villages last winter. These locations were selected, in part, because of the close proximity to where U.S. and Romanian military personnel are conducting training. The team spent about seven hours per day for two to three days in each village. Overall, the HCA team screened approximately 1,800 patients ranging from toddlers to the elderly. The team conducted nearly 300 dental consultations and about 900 general healthcare consultations. The optometrist distributed about 1,700 pairs of eye glasses.

"This has been a great mission for me," said Spc. Sarah L. Endsley, a U.S. Army preventative medicine specialist assigned to the U.S. Army Center for Health and Promotion and Preventative Medicine-West in Ft. Lewis, Wash. "This is a side of the Army a lot of people don't see and it is great to see how much the people of Romania appreciate us being here."

These HCA missions are part of operations related to JTF-East, a bi-lateral, U.S.-Romanian and U.S.-Bulgarian, U.S. Army Europe mission where U.S. forces are training side-by-side with their host-nation military partners. The traveling health fair, as the team calls themselves, will be conducting similar health support in selected villages in Bulgaria from now through the end of October. The HCA team is an integral part of the overall JTF-E mission designed to strengthen relations, build interoperability capabilities, and facilitate regional theater security cooperation with Romania and Bulgaria.