IRAQ: The Hospitals Need Treatment

By Dahr Jamail Reprint | | Print |

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Jul 29 2004 (IPS) - The killing of 68 people in Iraq Wednesday, and the injuries to hundreds brought yet more strain on hospitals in desperate need of supplies and equipment.

With medical supplies and equipment always short during the sanctions on Iraq through the 1990’s, hospitals in the war-torn country never had a chance to recover before the beginning of an occupation that has more closely resembled a low-grade war since its inception.

Hospitals in Iraq are overwhelmed with new patients, they are short of medicine and supplies, and lack adequate electricity and water.

“We are short of every medicine,” chief manager at the Chuwader General Hospital in the Sadr City area of Baghdad Dr Qasim al-Nuwesri told IPS. “It is forbidden, but sometimes we have to reuse IV’s (intra-veinous drips), even the needles. We have no choice.”

Dr al-Nuwesri added that they were short of most supplies, had a critical ambulance shortage, and that lack of potable water was a major problem.

“Of course we have typhoid, cholera, kidney stonesàbut we now even have the very rare Hepatitis Type-Eàand it has become common in our area,” said Dr al-Nuwesri. They never faced such problems before the invasion last year, he said.

There are only two hospitals in Sadr City, an area with a population of almost three million. Chuwader hospital needs at least 2,000 litres of water a day to maintain minimal sterilisation practices. The hospital currently receives about 15 percent of this amount, Dr al-Nuwesri says.

“The rest of the water is contaminated,” he says. This is causing severe problems in addition to power cuts, he adds. “Without electricity our instruments in the operating room cannot work and we have no pumps to bring us water.”

Clean water is the most immediate need, says Dr Amer Ali, a surgeon at the hospital. “Most people in this area are using pumps to get water. And these are sucking raw sewage rather than good water, causing infectious diseases like hepatitis.”

He said U.S. soldiers have periodically stormed his hospital looking for wounded resistance fighters. “They come here asking for patients, and are very rough because they shout, curse, and aim their guns at people,” he said. “We have patients run away when the Americans come, and then we hear that they die at home because they didn’t get their treatment.”

Dr Ali says firmly that “the cause of these worse conditions is the Americans.” Other doctors in the room nod in agreement.

Many doctors in Iraq believe that lack of assistance from the U.S. military coupled with the lack of rebuilding and reconstruction by foreign contractors has compounded the problems.

“They send bombs, not medicines,” says Dr Mohammed Rashid from the general hospital in Falluja.

Dr Sarmad Raheem, administrator of chief doctors at Al-Kerkh Hospital in Baghdad said they had received no assistance from the U.S. administration. “Some soldiers came here five months ago and asked what we needed. We told them, and they never brought us one single needle.”

On reconstruction contractors working to improve conditions at his hospital, Dr Raheem told IPS “we heard that some people from the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority)came here, but they never did anything for us.”

Al-Kerkh often resembles a combat field hospital, he says. “We have explosions all around us very often, it is like a war hospital. Everything is going worse.”

Hospitals throughout Baghdad suffer severely from the continuing electricity shortages. The city receives on average eight hours of electricity a day.

“Just last week we had a patient die on the operating table because we had a power outage and couldn’t run our equipment,” says Ahlan Bari, head manager of nurses at Yarmouk Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. “This never happened before the invasion.”

She added that the generators at her hospital often break down, and that fuel shortages amplify the problem.

The head manager at Al-Noman Hospital in Baghdad, Dr Abdullah Younis says his hospital too is facing equipment shortages.

“Of our five cardiac monitors, the two primary units are broken, and the three that are functioning are of very bad quality. And we have only two X-ray machines, and one is very old as you can see,” he said pointing at a machine made in 1970.

Dr Namin Rashid, the chief resident at Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad says the only help his hospital has received lately has been from Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

He says the U.S.-funded ministry of health does not give them enough supplies, and his hospital has only 100 sets of IVs and blood transfusion equipment. Yarmouk serves 5,000 patients a day.

“We are getting less medical supplies now than we were during the sanctions,” Dr Rashid says, and only half as much as before the invasion.

“The ministry (of health) talks a lot, but they take no action for us,” Dr Rashid added. “Paul Bremer (former U.S. Administrator of Iraq) came here and talked a lot at the beginning of the occupation, but nothing has changed.”

His hospital treats 10-20 gunshot victims each day, whereas before the invasion they treated an average of one a week, sometimes one a month, he says.

More than 160 Iraqis have been killed in attacks since the interim Iraqi government was handed over “sovereignty” on June 28.

International aid has been short after the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed last August, killing 20 people. Aid agencies and non-governmental organisations either reduced staffing or pulled out entirely.

Throughout Baghdad there are shortages of even the most basic medicines such as analgesics, antibiotics, anaesthetics and insulin. Surgical items are running out, as well as basic supplies like rubber gloves, gauze and medical tape.

“We have requested over 500 million dollars for equipment and only have 300 million dollars of this amount promised,” Dr Amer al-Khuzaie, deputy minister for health said in a recent statement. “Yet we still only have promises.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of a health emergency in Iraq if current conditions persist.