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US Administration breaches Geneva Convention in Hospitals in Iraq
Despite three weeks of the U.S. occupation and many months of planning for this war, Baghdad, a city the size of Houston and Chicago combined, still does not have any fully functioning hospitals," said Morten Rostrup, an emergency room surgeon who is the group's international council president.
Aid group accuses U.S. of failing Iraqi health
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Frontiers accused the United States on Friday of failing to provide for urgent medical needs in Iraq despite international law.
"Despite three weeks of the U.S. occupation and many months of planning for this war, Baghdad, a city the size of Houston and Chicago combined, still does not have any fully functioning hospitals," said Morten Rostrup, an emergency room surgeon who is the group's international council president.
"There is no doubt that responsibility for this, under the Geneva Conventions, lies with the U.S.-led coalition as occupying powers," Rostrup said.
At a Washington news conference Rostrup, who had just returned from six weeks in Iraq, said that three weeks after the fall of Baghdad, the city's hospitals and others around the country were in disarray.
"There are enough medical staff in Baghdad, enough doctors and nurses and the medical supplies situation also seems to be basically OK. What is lacking is the organization of hospitals and the immediate care of patients," Rostrup said.
The organization, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, said the United States and its allies were focused on constructing a new Iraqi government and health infrastructure -- a process that could take weeks and months. In the meantime, people were dying.
In Baghdad, hospitals are filthy, many were looted and no proper ambulance services or admissions procedures are in place. Patients including war wounded have been prematurely discharged and sufferers of chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease and epilepsy have nowhere to refill their medications.
"The lack of leadership and lack of intervention has cost an unacceptable amount of lives," he said.
In some hospitals, rival administrators have emerged and are conducting power struggles for control. But doctors and nurses have not been paid.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02289159.htm
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Frontiers accused the United States on Friday of failing to provide for urgent medical needs in Iraq despite international law.
"Despite three weeks of the U.S. occupation and many months of planning for this war, Baghdad, a city the size of Houston and Chicago combined, still does not have any fully functioning hospitals," said Morten Rostrup, an emergency room surgeon who is the group's international council president.
"There is no doubt that responsibility for this, under the Geneva Conventions, lies with the U.S.-led coalition as occupying powers," Rostrup said.
At a Washington news conference Rostrup, who had just returned from six weeks in Iraq, said that three weeks after the fall of Baghdad, the city's hospitals and others around the country were in disarray.
"There are enough medical staff in Baghdad, enough doctors and nurses and the medical supplies situation also seems to be basically OK. What is lacking is the organization of hospitals and the immediate care of patients," Rostrup said.
The organization, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, said the United States and its allies were focused on constructing a new Iraqi government and health infrastructure -- a process that could take weeks and months. In the meantime, people were dying.
In Baghdad, hospitals are filthy, many were looted and no proper ambulance services or admissions procedures are in place. Patients including war wounded have been prematurely discharged and sufferers of chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease and epilepsy have nowhere to refill their medications.
"The lack of leadership and lack of intervention has cost an unacceptable amount of lives," he said.
In some hospitals, rival administrators have emerged and are conducting power struggles for control. But doctors and nurses have not been paid.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02289159.htm
For more information:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N...
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