As we pull up to the hospital, Dr. Faslic hurries out to welcome us. He is a short, energetic man in his fifties, whose gait is a quick hobble because of a bullet lodged deep in his right ankle. Dr. Faslic is the only plastic surgeon in the Tuzla region of Bosnia, but now his specialty is war surgery. When the war broke out in March 1992, he left his practice to set up and staff field hospitals. He now travels with a small team of doctors, nurses, and technicians to help out wherever they are needed. Today Dr. Faslic is helping set up a new field hospital near the front lines.
I, too, try to help where I can--I’m a physician working for Doctors Without Borders, an international aid organization that provides medical care wherever needed, regardless of individuals’ political loyalties. Today I am delivering supplies.
Dr. Faslic is especially pleased that I could bring him the portable operating room lamp he had requested. The hospital still lacks equipment, he says, but the lamp will be a big help. Haris, my Bosnian assistant, and I have also brought our usual stock of supplies--gauze, antibiotics, painkillers, anesthetics, and disinfectants. As Haris unloads the supplies, Dr. Faslic shows me around the hospital.
Most of Bosnia’s field hospitals are in converted private homes, old chicken farms, or hunting lodges. But this one has been built in a low building roofed with heavy timber and sunk into the base of a cliff. It looks more like a bomb shelter than a hospital. But for a facility less than a kilometer from the front and well within reach of Serb heavy artillery, its cavelike design is prudent preventive medicine.
