Baquba
Denied The Healing Touch
By Ahmed Ali
26 July, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAQUBA, Jul 25 (IPS)
- Diyala General Hospital in the provincial capital Baquba has been
hit by severe lack of supplies amid ongoing attacks by militants.
Located 50km northeast of
Baghdad, the city of Baquba has become known now for both the huge U.S.
military operations and the presence of al-Qaeda.
The shortages coupled with
a lack of basic infrastructure have left the largest hospital in Diyala
province short of supplies, and staffed by terrorised doctors often
unable to do their job.
Diyala General Hospital,
built in the 1970's, was never adequately resourced since the devastating
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the dozen years of economic sanctions
since the early 1990s.
When the U.S.-led occupation
began in April 2003, administrators promised reconstruction and rehabilitation
of Iraq's healthcare system. It never came. This hospital, like countless
others in Iraq, is in a far worse condition today than even during the
sanctions period when more than half a million Iraqi children died from
malnutrition, disease and lack of adequate healthcare.
The problems appear to begin
and end with lack of security.
"One day, a number of
Iraqi army casualties caused by a suicide car bomb were brought to the
hospital by a military patrol," Mohammed Ali, a 39-year-old orthopaedic
surgeon told IPS. "The soldiers began to insult the staff, and
hit two physicians after ordering them to leave other patients and treat
the wounded soldiers first."
Doctors announced a strike,
Ali said. "A few days later the head of the physicians syndicate
called an end to the strike after intervention by the mayor."
But doctors have continued
to face abuse, Nasseer Adil, a 42-year-old pathologist told IPS. "It
has become very normal that any person can come and insult anyone in
the hospital."
Over time, the abuse and
threats have driven many doctors to leave their job, and when they can,
the country.
"The staff members began
to come to work intermittently, and sometimes we could hardly see one
physician in the whole hospital," Haleem Kareem, a 46-year-old
receptionist at the hospital told IPS.
Dr Ahmed Shibad, a 30-year-old
orthopaedic surgeon, fled the hospital for Syria four months ago after
he said he received death threats from Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S.
forces.
During an interview with
IPS in Damascus in May he said, "The Iraqi forces who regularly
came into the hospital to order us around and abuse us were supported
by the American military. The American soldiers watched the Iraqis do
this to us, and this is another reason why I left."
By October 2006, 18,000 Iraqi
doctors, over half of all doctors in Iraq, had fled the country, according
to a report by Radio Free Europe.
Now many people in Baquba
go to private clinics in hope of better treatment –
and security. But while the main hospital offers free treatment, private
clinics can be expensive.
Violence continues to plague
the Baquba hospital. "The fighters used to attack Iraqi army soldiers
who used to bring their casualties and bodies to the hospital,"
Hadi Sadeq, a 40-year-old official in the emergency unit told IPS. "For
this reason staff quit, and people in need of treatment stopped to come."
Complicating matters further
has been corruption within Iraq's Ministry of Health in Baghdad.
The ministry, which has been
run by officials loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has been accused
of favouring Shia areas in Iraq. Baquba, a mixed area, has been considered
a Sunni area by the ministry.
Doctors at Diyala General
Hospital told IPS they believe that the Heath Ministry has hindered
the supply of medical equipment and supplies to their hospital for sectarian
reasons.
"The Diyala director-general
of health was kidnapped in the building of the Health Ministry itself,
and was later killed in Sadr city," Majid Ibrahim, a 48-year-old
ophthalmologist told IPS. "It is a well-known incident, admitted
even by the health minister, Dr Ali al-Shamary."
A hospital worker, speaking
on condition of anonymity, told IPS that lately the government has been
trying to increase protection for the hospital but that "unfortunately,
the guards are all Shia."
(Ahmed, our correspondent
in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail,
our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in
the region.)
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