10 months after U.S. vow, Iraqi hospitals still in dire shape

[enough]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/8113713.htm

Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004

Iraqi hospitals in dire shape

Months after a U.S. vow, supplies and sanitation are scarce.
By Ken Dilanian
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER


BAGHDAD - Amaal Hameed sat hunched on a chair, sobbing quietly. Her 2-month-old boy lay dead on the hospital bed, wrapped in a black robe.

Flies buzzed about. Blood stained the floor. The nearby toilets were backed up with feces.

This was the cardiac unit of Iraq's premier children's hospital, but there were no nurses to comfort Hameed, no orderlies to help pack her belongings.

A young physician who was showing journalists around stopped to review the dead baby's chart. The boy had a heart defect, the kind repaired by a simple operation in developed countries. Even in Iraq, the operation is sometimes possible, the doctor said; it wasn't clear why it wasn't performed.

What is clear is that 10 months after the U.S.-led coalition promised to make things better, Iraq's shattered medical system is still a mess. Such basics as latex gloves and pain pills are often unavailable. Physicians routinely are threatened or attacked. Administrative staff chat over tea while toilets clog with filth, resulting in the spread of lethal infections.

much more>

Heartbreaking and infuriating.