Central DuPage thanked for donating medical supplies

Central DuPage Hospital received a special thank-you Wednesday for a donation of medical supplies the hospital made to an Iraqi hospital.

Dan Whisnant and Doug Johnson, former Marines who both served a year near Baghdad in 2004, presented hospital CEO Luke McGuinness with a flag flown over a military base in Fallujah.

The recognition stems from a donation of $25,000 in medical supplies Central DuPage provided to Fallujah General Hospital.

Johnson, a neurosurgeon at the Winfield hospital, helped coordinate last fall's donation of equipment, which included IV tubing, latex gloves, bandages, arm slings and stethoscopes.

"I can't say thank you enough," Whisnant said. "We rarely have to ask for help, but when we do it's very comforting to see there are people who want to help."

Whisnant, who completed his last tour in Iraq in the spring, said the medical equipment was used to help gain the confidence of a civilian hospital in Fallujah. The troops want the Iraqi civilians on their side, Whisnant said.

A Navy commander with the Company A 1st Battalion, 24th Marines based in Michigan, Johnson said the aid was desperately needed. Despite having highly educated doctors, the Fallujah hospital lacked nurses and the more sophisticated medical treatments available here.

"Their emergency room was (the size of a) chicken coop," Johnson said. "And doctors would see 200 to 300 Iraqis a day."

Feeling an obligation to serve, Johnson signed up for the military in 2003 and was deployed in September 2004. He returned the following April.

Johnson has since worked as a regimental surgeon, supervising a team of six military surgeons in charge of the care of 6,000 Marines. The work takes several hours of his time each day.

Johnson's son has followed in his father's footsteps, helping to organize the donation and shipment of 55 boxes of clothes to Iraqi children as part of his Eagle Scout project.

"It's an example of some of the grass-roots stuff going on," Johnson said. The effort by Central DuPage, in particular, "made me pleased to be associated with this place."