Iraqi baby arrives in Ohio for treatment of growth

COLUMBUS (AP) -- An 8-month-old Iraqi girl arrived in Ohio late Wednesday to receive medical care for a possibly fatal neck growth.
Fatemah Hassan was transported by ambulance to Children's Hospital in Columbus shortly after her plane landed at 10:45 p.m.
Fatemah was blue from lack of oxygen when her parents took her to a U.S. military base in Iraq last month, where she was treated by Lt. Col. Todd Fredricks, an Ohio doctor who practices in Marietta.
The child has what Army doctors believe to be a cavernous hemangioma, caused by a dense group of blood vessels that have grown so large that they could restrict her breathing.
"The tumor is on her neck and chest wall. This tumor could potentially threaten her ability to breathe if not removed in the near future," Rep. Ted Strickland of Lisbon, D-6th, wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to request expedited visas for Fatemah and her mother, Beyda'a Amir Abdul Jabar.
It took Fredricks three days to stabilize her, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Fredricks contacted Children's Hospital in Columbus, where Dr. Gayle Gordillo is director of the Hemangioma and Vascular Malformation Clinic.
He also contacted Strickland's office, while Lt. Col. Mike Brumbage, his colleague in the 1st Infantry Division stationed in Baghdad, contacted one of his home state's senators, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, also a Democrat.
Gordillo presented the case last month to Children's Hospital's International Patient Committee, which decided that Fatemah could be treated at no cost if she could get to Columbus.
Hospital officials declined to comment on Fatemah's condition and treatment, citing patient confidentiality.
The hospital found a Kurdish family in the Columbus area to host Fatemah and her mother while she received medical treatment. Fatemah and her family are part of Iraq's Kurdish ethnic minority.
The baby and her mother left Ramstein Air Base in Germany around 10 a.m. Eastern Time Wednesday. The C-141 cargo plane, converted so that it can hold medical patients, landed at Rickenbacker Air National Guard base in Columbus, said Maj. Ted Theopolos, public affairs officer for 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The wing was responsible for transporting the baby from Iraq, to Germany, to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., and then to Columbus.
Political barriers
The current political situation makes it very difficult to secure permission to travel from the Middle East to the United States, Strickland said. That's why it was so important that he and Rockefeller intervene on the baby's behalf.
"We weren't asking for anything in violation of any law or regulation, but the Department of Homeland Security is so overwhelmed these days," Strickland said. "It was my feeling that because of the medical nature of this problem that there was strong justification for asking that it be dealt with in an expedited manner."
"It is more difficult for nearly everyone to enter this country now, compared to what it was in years past. But someone coming from that region of the world, and certainly Iraq, would be subject to increased scrutiny, just because of the nature of the conflict over there."
With Fatemah and her mother on the way to Ohio and Children's Hospital, Strickland said he felt he had done his part to help.
"My role now is to hope and pray that this young child will be adequately provided for," he said.