Any Help and prayers
Aussie News & Views readers can afford this wonderfully brave and beautiful woman would be greatly appreciated,she is an Australian and has been deliberately jerked around by the Socialist Rudd Labor government,in the hope she would die before they had to provide her with the necessary assistance and treatment so as she might have a chance of life.
Medi DONT Care
Interesting the same Socialist Labor Government falls over itself to spend millions of Australian taxpayers taxes to provide medical assistance to our declared enemies and non citizens around the world,even those who support the killing of Australian service personnel
Pauline being transplanted today!!
Hi all,
Very exciting news today. Pauline was called up for the forth time for transplant today and has been told the organs are good! She is being prepared for surgery as we speak and by tomorrow she should be on the way to having a second chance at life.
Please all send your thoughts to Pauline during this difficult surgery.
Thank you all for your support, you helped make this happen.
Marni
Tags: life-saving surgery
Iraqi family embraces life with old enemy
Michael McKenna
The Australian
August 25, 2009
FOUR years after the al-Saadi family's lives were shattered by a Digger's spray of bullets in Baghdad, the Iraqis are making a new start in Australia following the granting of permanent residency.
In that fateful instant, on the evening of February 26, 2005, shop owner Nezar Saadi, his wife Lamyaa and their three young children - crowded into a Volkswagen as they returned home from a family function - were shot by a patrolling Australian soldier who mistook them for the enemy. Now, settled in Brisbane just suburbs away from the Digger who fired the volley of shots that maimed Mrs Saadi and youngest son Ahmed, the family of five has embraced the local lifestyle and professes gratitude to a country whose soldiers nearly killed them.
Both Ahmed, 13, and his older sister Shaymaa, 16, are typical Australian kids - loaded with energy and carrying mischievous smiles. They are both at high school, having studied English since their arrival for medical treatment in 2007, and talk of sports and their mates in broad Australian accents.
"We have really good friends at school," Shaymaa said.
Both play a range of sports, with their favourite, soccer, being the subject of typical sibling banter about who is the better player.
Mr Saadi is studying English, in preparation for entering the workforce. His wife is looking after their youngest daughter, Reem, 5, and herself, after bearing the brunt of the bullets and shrapnel that peppered their car in 2005.
Through an interpreter, Mrs Saadi said her children had fitted in well at school.
"They have been treated well and have made some good friends in Australia," she said.
Mrs Saadi can't get over the abundance of food compared with Iraq, which endured years of rations before the start of the war, and then massive shortages after the US forces took Baghdad.
"It's amazing - there's nothing I can't get here," she said.
In the attack, Mrs Saadi lost the sight in her left eye, suffered skull and jaw fractures, hearing loss and scarring to her face.
Ahmed, then aged 8, was blinded in his right eye.
Mrs Saadi still has severe headaches and may soon have further plastic surgery and be fitted with an artificial eye.
All of them were traumatised by the shooting and still undergo counselling.
The soldier who fired the shots was medically discharged months later, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Although the Saadis are not the only innocents to be injured by Australian forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, Immigration Department officials say they are the only known victims of either war to be brought to Australia for specialist medical treatment. Last year, they were granted permanent residency - also a first of its kind - in a move that appears to put to rest doubts about Australia's culpability in the attack on the family.
The Department of Defence has refused to release the report of the internal investigation into the shooting, but the secret report is likely to become the subject of a legal tug-of-war.
Last year, the Saadis made Australian legal history by launching civil action in Queensland's Supreme Court, seeking compensation for their injuries.
The case is set to test the assertion by Chief of the Defence Force Angus Houston that the commonwealth is not "legally liable" for injuries inflicted in ADF military operations.
The Saadis' solicitor, Rod Hodgson, a partner at Maurice Blackburn lawyers, said the government had treated the family well in Australia.
But Mr Hodgson said the standard of care and approval for permanent residency did not excuse the government from liability for the damage they had caused the family.
"The issue of compensation is distinct from that of their status as permanent residents, and the court proceedings remain on foot," he told The Australian.
"When we have some clarity as to prognosis, we are hopeful of having discussion with the government and resolving the court action.
"The government has been very sensible, compassionate and demonstrative of good will in their treatment of the family."
The Department of Defence last night failed to respond to questions about the case supplied last Thursday.
Through their lawyers, the Saadis said they were trying to put the pieces back together and create a brighter future for their children in Australia.
While the Saadis are the first to be allowed to live in Australia because of injuries inflicted by Australian troops, there are hundreds of other Iraqis who have been granted residency visas because of the assistance they gave to Australian forces.
Last year, the Rudd government said Iraqi employees, including translators and interpreters, would be able to apply for resettlement in "recognition of the personal security situation they will face" for their work with Australian forces.
The visas would extend to the employees' immediate families.
Immigration department figures show that up to last month, 450 Iraqis have arrived in Australia, with another 50 visas having been granted.
These people will cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over their and their families lifetime’s, with a never ending supply of social security benefits and FREE for life medical and dental treatment along with Free or heavily subsidised housing and an endless supply of family reunion “relatives” who are, for what ever reason granted residency in Australia over the coming years by a lick spittle Socialist Labor government and PM,”Kevin 07” obsessed with engratiating themselves to their International Socialist masters at the United Nations.
