health care in Iraq

[donsu]

this is from an email


Casualties of Polling

He writhes in pain, moaning with every other breath. The Iraqi police colonel’s chest is covered in bandages, his legs from the knees down nearly completely hidden from view due to thick bandages <http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album33&id=legs> holding what is left of his shins together.

“We gave him first aid and requested a transfer because we don’t have any specialists left,” Dr. Aisha tells me, her name changed as requested since doctors are now technically forbidden to talk to the media or allow them to take photos in Iraqi hospitals unless granted permission from the Ministry of Health and its US-advisor.

And even then we are only allowed to talk with “spokespeople” at select hospitals.

Yarmouk would certainly not be on the top of their list of hospitals for the press to visit, as being one of Baghdad’s larger and busiest hospitals and located in the middle of the capital city the majority of casualties are brought here.

-snip-

“We sent him to a neurological hospital which couldn’t treat him because all of their specialists have left the country,” Dr. Aisha continues. Her frustration is expressed in her precisely spoken words, hammering out the details like a veteran on the front lines.

So the colonel was returned to Yarmouk untreated. He’d been guarding a polling station when a suicide bomber detonated nearby. The shrapnel turned his legs into hamburger and left his chest split open.

“I asked him not to leave the house, not to obey the Americans,” his wife who is standing nearby with their little boy and girl tells me, “But he said that he had to go or the Americans would cut his salary. And also because he said it was his duty.”

-snip-

“The Americans told him he should die with his countrymen! God damn them for what they have done to my husband! God damn them for what they have done to Iraq!”

We promptly thank her and hastily leave the room, not wanting to draw more attention to ourselves.

-snip-

“We asked the Americans for supplies,” Dr. Aisha tells me later when we exit the room, “But they didn’t help us any. How can we continue like this? When an American private is badly wounded they fly him to Germany or America. Here we have high ranking police officers and Iraqi soldiers who are brought to this dirty hospital with no specialists!”
-snip-
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are we proud yet?

the above is from:

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **