A
Doctor's Day In Baghdad
By Dr. Anon
25 September, 2006
Counterpunch
Baghdad.
I have a big family. My eldest
two are already dentists and both abroad. I have one daughter just married
one month ago. so I am not yet a grandpa. Although I have perfect job
satisfaction, Full Professor, with MRCP, FRCP and a couple more degrees
from London and France, things are so unhappy here in Baghdad, there
is no quality of life at all. There are no services: we are loaded with
garbage, as it is not collected more than once every so many weeks,
the garbage collectors are also afraid of being killed. We have almost
no electricity, no fuel, bad water supply, and what's more you could
get killed whether you are Shiite or Sunnite, if you fall in the wrong
hands. I nearly got killed on several occasions, I cannot count the
sheep sacrified for my safety till now.
As for our colleagues, nearly
none is with me from our medical class, all have left the country, the
last one two months ago, to Oman. The only one left with me is XXXXX,
he is a physician in the department of Medicine
It is not a miserable life.
If there is a grade more than miserable, then it will be ours!
We work no more than three
days a week in the university, medical city, the one which was elegant
and beautiful is now surrounded by garbage and barbwires and concrete
blocks from all directions. We don't spend more than three hours maximum
at work, so that totals to nine hours a week. This is the maximum that
anyone is working. In the afternoons most of my colleagues say that
they have completely stopped going to their private clinics, for fear
of death or abduction. I do no more than one and a half hours in the
afternoon, I have to feed my big family. I come back rushing to my house
after that, we lock our doors and do not leave at all.
What about shopping? What
shopping? You must be joking! It is called Marathon Buying, for I try
to spend no more than ten minutes getting all the needed vegetables,
fruits and food items--this is on my way back from university, ie three
times a week. I also spend another ten minutes in the afternoon on my
way back from clinic buying gas (benzine, car fuel) for my home electric
generator. It is all black market reaching four to five times the official
price. If I need to get it legally, I have to spend overnight in line
in front of the gas station, people bring their blankets, water, food,
and sleep in the street in front of the gas stations. Of course sometimes
I speak nicely to the guard of the gas station, presenting my ID and
my buisness card and ask them if I could fill my car off-line. Sometimes
they kick me out, othertimes I would get lucky and the guard has some
rheumatic complaints, back pain or knees pains and bingo! I can fill
my car off-line, with a promise to bring him medicines. Of course without
any physical exam or investigations, if I was too lucky, and the stars
where on my side that day, then I may even be allowed to get an extra
20 litres of gas for my generator.
A month ago, there were militia
men with their guns, storming the dormitories of resident doctors in
the medical city. They were particularly looking for doctors from Mosul
or Anbar. There was a big fuss, and target doctors went into hidings,
none was caught. Next day, two of them -- rheumatology post-graduates
under my supervision -- asked me to give them leave to go to their hometowns
and not be back except for their exams, and that even their training
and teaching be taken there. I agreed, because they were leaving anyway.
They would have been killed if they were caught, not because they have
done any crime, but just because they are Sunni from Mosul and Anbar.
I believe that many doctors
from southern parts of Iraq, who were Shiites, also left the dormitory
on that day, because they feared that they are not safe anymore, and
that next time it will be their turn, when maybe Sunni militia gunmen
will come. So everyone left. Actually in that week I had prepared a
lecture for post-grad doctors in the medical city. No one appeared,
as all resident doctors had left. Of course many have come back again,
but are terrified. Yet life has to go on.
The same applies for other
hospitals, services are almost non-existant now. I was in Yarmouk hospital
two days ago. The resident doctor whom I was visiting was living in
a place in the hospital with broken, dusty furniture, wood and metal
scattered all over, doors and windows broken. It looked like an animal
barn. I was requesting a death certificate for a colleague. I went with
him to the morgue where he kept the death registry. Outside the morgue
there were the bodies of two young men, both shot in the head, laid
on stretchers in the open air. The hospital was barricaded behind huge
cement walls-- the hospital itself had been targeted several times by
car bombs. A few months ago, doctors in this hospital declared a one
day strike because they were being regularly beaten and wounded by officers
of the National Guard. The hospitals are frequently raided by militia
men who pull the wounded out of their hospital beds and drag them to
where they will be executed.
Attendance of patients to
hospitals has dropped tremendously. We used to see an avrerage of one
hundred patients in our consultation clinic at Rheumatology every single
day prior to 2003. We don't see more than twenty these days. Don't ask
me where did the patients disappear to? Many are scared to leave their
homes and go to the hospitals. The hospital used to provide medicines
for the chronically ill, for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. We
used to have a monthly blood check followed by a month supply of DMRDs.
These supplies are now so infrequent, blood checking is not done. Because
services are so irregular, most patients got fed up and decided it is
no more worth it to attend hospitals. Even simple NSAIDs most of the
times are not available to patients coming for acute complaints. Many
who used to come from towns and cities away from Baghdad, for better
treatment in the capital city, now think it is too risky and dangerous
to travel to Baghdad for follow ups. Instead, patients stop their therapy
altogether, or depend on local facilities and whatever simple resources
they get where they are, regardless of whether it is efficient or not.
The financial situation of most families in Baghdad has gone so much
down, that many find it is a luxury to treat chronic illnesses. The
priority is for food, fuel and staying alive.
This is a small summary of
what and how we are living.