Doctor describes the devastation of Iraq

Niko Leka, Green Left Weekly

Peace movement supporters turned out in their hundreds to public meetings around the country last week featuring US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and founding member of Doctors of Iraq Salaam Ismael. Ismael witnesses the carnage day after day, desperately trying to cope with few resources. "The health system has been destroyed after three years of occupation", he told the 500-strong meeting in Sydney on May 23, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and the Medical Association for Prevention of War. The Iraqi people have become death statistics on the Internet: 100,000, 150,000, numbers with no names, he said. The wholesale destruction of Iraq’s health infrastructure involves more than buildings — there is little food and hardly any medicine. Eleven of the 18 hospitals have been completely looted and the water supply is 40% less this year than last...

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DID I SAY I LOATHED THOSE BASTARDS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WITH A PASSION

'Lacking so many things,' Iraqi hospitals are barely alive

Nakem Faleh wipes tears from the eyes of her 4-year-old daughter, Kasak Hidar, at the cancer ward of the Mother and Child Hospital in Basra, Iraq. Kasak suffers from a neuroblastoma, tumor of the brain. Meanwhile, at least 3,240 civilians have been killed in the Iraq war. (June 11, 2003)
Credit: Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By LARRY JOHNSONSEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

BASRA, Iraq -- The doctor in charge of the children's cancer ward at the Mother and Child Hospital spoke passionately of her patients' needs as tears rolled down her face.

"We will run out of drugs in two to three weeks," said Dr. Janan Ghalib Hassan, the words coming rapid-fire in clipped, British-trained English.

She ticked off a list of health and hospital needs: drugs, medical equipment, electricity, clean water -- and safety.

"I am afraid to ride to work in my car," she said, because of recent robberies, rapes, kidnappings and murders.

"The U.S. and British forces made many promises, but until now they have done nothing here."
Hassan said with adequate treatment, the mortality rate for her leukemia patients is 20 percent; without the proper drugs, the mortality rate is 80 percent.

She said no one should be surprised that invasion forces aren't helping people.

"All the educated people of Iraq know that the war wasn't for helping the people, but for taking the oil," Hassan said.

"Before we said, 'O Saddam'; now we must say 'O Bush' and 'O Tony Blair.' They have destroyed everything.

"You may have read or seen how people are thanking the U.S. forces, but that is not all of the people, believe me," Hassan said.

Years of sanctions and three wars have left most Iraqis with little or no access to health care. Aid workers say hospitals lack drugs, medical equipment and other supplies needed to care for patients. Most of the shortages are a result of the former U.N. sanctions, but since the end of the war, many hospitals also have been looted.

Drugs and medical equipment, stamped "Ministry of Health -- Do not sell" can be found in markets from Baghdad to Basra.

The World Health Organization on May 21 reported that Iraq's hospitals were running at 20 percent of their capacity

Nine-year-old leukemia patient Ala Hashem is carried from her bed by her father at the Mother and Child Hospital in Basra, Iraq. The hospital is expected to run out of medicine in weeks. (June 11, 2003)

Credit: Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

At that time, WHO was trying to collect $180 million for a six-month program to restore basic services and pay salaries at hospitals across Iraq.

"We are lacking so many things that we need to treat our patients," said Dr. Salma Haddad, in the cancer unit at the Al Mansour Teaching Hospital in Baghdad.

She said because of safety concerns and because many haven't been paid, some nurses have stopped coming to the hospital. No one wants to be on the streets after dark.

At the University of Baghdad Medical College recently, a husband, distraught because he was afraid his wife wouldn't give birth in time to get home before dark, threatened to start shooting the staff if they didn't perform a caesarean section.

The entire staff promptly walked out.

Meanwhile, many hospitals and medical clinics are left to deal with the victims of war, increasing street violence and outbreaks of cholera and dysentery through rolling blackouts and stifling heat.

A man shops for medicine that is being sold on the streets of central Baghdad. Since the end of the war, many hospitals have been looted, with medical supplies found in marketplaces from Baghdad to Basra.

Before the Gulf War, Iraq had one of the best medical systems in the Middle East. Patients came here for treatment from throughout the region. Students came here to study at Iraq's many teaching hospitals.

This week some doctors were talking about a new shortage, at least at some of Baghdad's hospitals: patients. Many people, discouraged by inadequate health care, have simply stopped seeking treatment.

From the cancer ward in Basra, Hassan has tracked the rise in cancer, primarily in southern Iraq, for years. It is a phenomena that she and others say may be caused by depleted uranium used by U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

"I worked here in this hospital in 1980 and never saw so much cancer, but after 1991, I started to see many more cancer cases," Hassan said.

She said that because the incubation period for cancer is about five years, the effects of the latest war should start showing up in 2008. "I think the number of cancer cases will be as much as 10 times or more higher," Hassan said.

On a tour through one of the wards, Hassan points out a little girl with leukemia, one of the most common cancers around Basra. The girl is the second child in her family to get leukemia. A brother died from it recently.

In another bed, a 10-month-old boy with bone cancer has a huge swollen area across his chest. He twists in pain and whimpers.

Everywhere in the ward there are children with leukemia, bone cancer and tumors.
The parents stand quietly in the background, looking hopefully at visitors.

HOW TO HELP>>>CONT

AND THIS CREATURE CALLS HIMSELF A

CHRISTIAN, I SAY BURN IN HELL YOU

DESTROYER OF LIFE. SAVE THE FETUS NOT

THE CHILD

US Gives Iraqi Hospitals Broken Promises in Place of Medicine ...

While US authorities sit on billions in funds supposedly earmarked for rebuilding Iraq, civilian hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed, basic supplies ...

A TOILET IN A CRITICAL CARE UNIT AT AL-KERKH GENERAL HOSPITAL. LIKE SO MANY HOSPITALS AL-KERKH IS UNDERSUPPLIED AND UNDER STAFFED.

DAHR JAMAIL/ THE NEW STANDARD