Military healthcare providers

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE THREAT AND THE MILITARY HEALTHCARE PROVIDER... 

To the military healthcare provider, chemical warfare crosses over the lines of strategic and tactical purposes, where victory may be viewed as full justification of... 

The Chemical Warfare Threat and the Military Healthcare Provider... 

The military stockpiles of several major powers are known to include nerve agents, and the armamentaria of other countries are thought to contain them as well (see Chapter 4, The Chemical Warfare Threat and the Military Healthcare Provider). Because of the possibility of nerve agent use in future conflicts, military medical personnel should have some knowledge of these agents, their effects, and the proper therapy for treating casualties. 

Rapid and intense teaching programs helped prepare our medical healthcare providers, so that by the onset of Operation Desert Storm, they were as ready as any military medical personnel might be to go to war. Hundreds of thousands of troops were supplied with chemical pretreatment and therapeutic agents and thousands were immunized against anthrax and the botulinum toxins, the two most likely biological... 

Although healthcare providers are usually not involved in the political or military decisions surrounding use of chemical weapons, they must be... 

Healthcare providers, as well as local officials, are concerned about the spread of contamination. The procedure for decontamination of litter patients can be found in Appendix E of U.S. Army Field Manual 8-10-4, Medical Platoon Leaders Handbook Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.8 The IRF will decontaminate patients and pass them across a hotline to the Medical Response Team (MRT). At that point the casualty should be completely clean. Civilian officials may require a casualty certified clean before moving the patient off the military installation. This requirement may be avoided through adequate coordination and training prior to an exercise or an actual chemical accident or incident. Building confidence in the civilian sector through education and communication is essential in providing a rapid and adequate medical response. 

Another important difference between the military and civilian sectors is that military officials may be able to predict with some degree of certainty when CWAs could be used, and thus equip the warfighter with pre-and post-exposure coxmtermeasures, such as PB and Duodote kits. However, since it is nearly impossible to predict when a civilian attack may occur, the NIH has been primarily focused on treating victims after exposure to CWAs. The exception to this approach is that there is some current research into prophylactic treatments that could be administered to first-responders who must enter a contaminated site or those who must treat victims that may still be contaminated, such as healthcare providers in the emergency department. 

The VA system in the United States provides healthcare for Americans who have served their country in the military and, unusually in the United States,... 

Note that while the healthcare systems in Canada and UK use socialized financing, they do not necessarily practice socialized medicine as patients have the option of obtaining healthcare at private clinics. The Medicare and Medicaid plans of the US healthcare can access private hospitals as well as clinics. In contrast, healthcare delivery to US military veterans is the responsibility of government owned providers that are also financed by the govermnent (tax payers). 

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