Treatment Grim for Wounded Iraqis Ali Left Behind

Treatment Grim for Wounded Iraqis Ali Left Behind
By Hassan Hafidh
Reuters
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi boy who became a symbol of civilian suffering in Iraq's war after he lost his arms has been flown to Kuwait for specialist care. He needs major surgery but at least he has escaped Baghdad.

Ali Ismaeel Abbas leaves behind scores of wounded Iraqis at the mercy of the collapsing Iraqi heath system. Baghdad's three main hospitals are shut and doctors warn that those still open will follow suit if order is not restored to the Iraqi capital.

Iraqi and foreign doctors said Baghdad's Medical City, Yarmouk and al-Kindi hospitals were closed due to power cuts, a shortage of medicines and staff and fear of the looting that swept the city after Saddam Hussein's rule collapsed last week.

They said the 33 hospitals in the city of five million people were in no fit state to cope with Iraq's war-wounded or patients with chronic diseases and they had yet to receive significant medical assistance from outside the country.

"We are in very difficult situation with shortages of medicine, staff and equipment," said Laith Sabih, a doctor at an orthopedic and plastic surgery hospital in Baghdad.

He said the hospital had only one small generator which worked a few hours a day so operations could be carried out. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has promised a new generator. Without one, he said, the hospital would shut.

"There is a big shortage of power. I did surgery with a kerosene lamp," said Jacques Beres, 61, a Belgian doctor with the French charity Aide Medicale Internationale, who said he had performed 50 operations since the war began on March 20.

Mobs have ransacked many of Baghdad's hospitals and stolen medical supplies, prompting the ICRC to remind U.S.-led forces in Iraq of their responsibilities under international law as an occupying power to protect vital public services.

STAFF STAYING AWAY

Some of the city's main hospitals with the capability for more sophisticated treatment, among the best in the Middle East before the war, were the worst hit by the looters.

The ICRC said on Tuesday the situation in Baghdad appeared to be improving slowly as stability returned and said its national staff were starting to return to work for the first time in days. But the World Health Organization said many hospitals in Iraq still lacked vital supplies and equipment.

Iraqi doctors said most medical and support staff had failed to report for work over the last few days due to the collapse of the Baghdad public transport system. Most hospitals were working with only two doctors on duty at a time.

"I am a volunteer. I used to work in another hospital but because of the lack of transport I come to this hospital as it's near my home," said Ghasan Abdul Illah, a doctor working at the neurology hospital in central Baghdad. Dr. Zakaria Arajy, acting manager of al-Shahid Adnan Hospital, said perhaps only a tenth of the staff were showing up.

His hospital usually only sees referral cases and is not designed to treat emergencies, but has become a de facto casualty hospital during the war.

CLUSTER CASUALTIES

While the fighting has largely abated in the capital, hospitals are still treating those wounded in weeks of U.S. bombardment and admitting victims of belated explosions of cluster bombs as well as those shot by armed looters.

Cluster bombs are controversial because they consist of hundreds of tiny bomblets, about the size of a soft drinks can, not all of which explode on impact. The unexploded bomblets effectively become anti-personnel land mines on the ground.

Staff at Kadhamiya hospital said they were treating several children wounded when a cluster bomb exploded as they played at a marketplace. The bomb had also apparently killed others.

While donations and offers of help have poured in from around the world for 12-year-old Ali to receive expert care in Kuwait, Dr Arajy of the al-Shahid Adnan Hospital said he and his staff felt they were failing their patients in Baghdad.

"They are not treated properly," he said. "I am not proud of the service I am giving."

"True, I and all the staff in the hospital are doing their best," he said. "It is very devastating to me inside. It is not even second best, it is tenth best."

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