Tuesday, 02 October 2007
By John Connor
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
BASRAH — The construction site of the Basrah Children’s Hospital is a hotbed of activity these days, with an average of 750 workers on the job each day, according to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chad Lorenzana.
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The $163 million, 94-bed hospital, which will focus on oncology, is targeted to open in January 2009. Once badly foundering, the project has been moving ahead steadily since USACE assumed responsibility for its management and a new contractor was brought in.
Dorko cast a professional engineer’s eye on the construction work and pronounced it “decent.” He said hospital construction is very hard to begin with, and added that “I can’t imagine how much harder it is” in place that has had to cope with oppression, war and violence.
“It’s a magnificent project and I can’t wait to come back and see it when it's finished,” said Dorko. Construction is now 66 percent complete, Lorenzana told him.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389Meanwhile, back in the States, House Democrats failed Thursday to override President Bush's veto of their pre-election year effort to expand a popular government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.
The bill had bipartisan support but the 273-156 roll call was nine votes of the two-thirds majority supporters needed to enact the bill into law despite Bush's objections. The bill had passed the Senate with a bigger than two-thirds majority.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_go_co/children_s_health_20