Medics
Beg For Help As
Iraqis Die Needlessly
By Jeremy Laurance
21 October 2006
The
Independent
The
disintegration of Iraq's health service is leaving its civilians defenceless
in the continuing violence that is rocking the country, Iraqi doctors
warn today.
As many as half of the civilian
deaths, calculated at 655,000 since the 2003 invasion, might have been
avoided if proper medical care had been provided to the victims, they
say.
In separate appeals, the
doctors beg for help to stem the soaring death rate and ease the suffering
of injured families and children. They say governments and the international
medical community are ignoring their plight.
In the first 14 months after
the 2003 invasion almost $20bn (£11bn) was spent on reconstruction
by the British and American funds, including hundreds of millions on
rebuilding and re-equipping the country's network of 180 hospitals and
clinics.
But billions went missing
because of a combination of criminal activity, corruption, and incompetence,
leaving Iraqis without even the essentials for basic medical care.
The violence for which the
Allied forces failed to plan has meant a $200m reconstruction project
for building 142 primary care centres ran out of cash earlier this year
with just 20 on course to be completed, an outcome the World Health
Organisation described as "shocking".
In March, the campaign group
Medact said 18,000 physicians had left the country since 2003, an estimated
250 of those that remained had been kidnapped and, in 2005 alone, 65
killed.
Medact also said "easily
treatable conditions such as diarrhoea and respiratory illness caused
70 per cent of all child deaths", and that " of the 180 health
clinics the US hoped to build by the end of 2005, only four have been
completed and none opened".
Writing in the British Medical
Journal today, Dr Basssim Al Sheibani and two colleagues from the Diwaniyah
College of Medicine in Iraq says that, as the violence escalates, "the
reality is we cannot provide any treatment for many of the victims."
"Emergency departments
are staffed by doctors who do not have the proper experience or skills
to manage emergency cases. Medical staff ... admit that more than half
of those killed could have been saved if trained and experienced staff
were available."
They say equipment, supplies
and drugs are in many cases unobtainable. " Many emergency departments
are no more than halls with beds, fluid suckers and oxygen bottles."
They add: "Our experience
has taught us that poor emergency medicine services are more disastrous
than the disaster itself. But despite the daily violence that is crushing
Iraq, the international medical community is doing little more than
looking on"
The shortages were graphically
highlighted in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary made by GuardianFilms,
and broadcast in February. It revealed that children with diarrhoeal
disease were dying of dehydration because hospitals lacked the right
sized needles to inject them with fluids.
In Diwaniyah children's hospital,
doctors were shown struggling to give drugs by ventilation to a two-day
old girl, Zehara, who was born with underdeveloped lungs, because they
had the wrong sized plastic mask. Masks costs pennies but, like all
other equipment, are in short supply.
Zehara's father was dispatched
on to the streets to try to buy Vitamin K on the black market, urgently
needed for an injection. But it was too late - by the time he returned,
she was dead and her twin brother also passed away shortly afterwards.
In a separate report yesterday,
Peter Kandela, an Iraqi doctor who has practised as a GP in Surrey for
30 years, travelled through Jordan and Syria interviewing Iraqi medical
staff who had escaped the violence.
"The current Iraqi brain
drain is the worst the country has seen in its modern history,"
he writes
"In the new Iraq there
is a price tag linked to your position and status. Those doctors who
have stayed in the country know what they are worth in kidnapping terms
and ensure their relatives have easy access to the necessary funds to
secure their speedy release if they are taken."
He describes a kidney surgeon
seized by a group of armed men, despite the presence of security guards
who he had hired to protect himself, whose first act was to go through
his contacts book for other potential victims. " They had the audacity
to suggest that in return for receiving better treatment inn captivity
I should recommend others for kidnapping", the surgeon said.
He was released unharmed
after a ransom of $250,000 was paid by his wife.
In Baghdad where no one can
escape violence, hospitals provided the last refuge. But they are now
unsafe and Iraqis are avoiding them. Public hospitals in the city are
controlled by Shiia - who have come under suspicion for allowing death
squads to enter them to kill Sunnis.
Abu Nasr, the cousin of a
man injured in a car bomb who was dragged from his hospital bed and
riddled with bullets, told the Washington Post: "We would prefer
now to die instead of going to the hospitals. I will never go back to
one, never. The hospitals have become killing fields."
Medical notes
34,000 The
number of Iraqi physicians registered before the 2003 war.
18,000 The
estimated number of Iraqi physicians who have left since the 2003 invasion.
2,000 The
estimated number of Iraqi physicians murdered since 2003.
250 The
number of Iraqi physicians kidnapped.
34 The number
of reconstructive surgeons in Iraq before the 2003 invasion.
20 The number
who have either been murdered of fled. 72 per cent of Iraqis needing
reconstructive surgery are suffering from gunshot or blast wounds.
164 The
number of nurses murdered - 77 wounded.
$243,000,000
The amount of money set aside by US administration to build 142 private
health clinics in post-invastion Iraq.
20 The number
of such clinics built by April 2006.
$0 The amount
of money left over.
$1bn The
amount of money the US administration has spent on Iraq's healthcare
system.
$8bn The
amount of money needed over the next 4 years to fund the health care
system
70 the percentage
of deaths among children caused by "easily treatable conditions"
such as diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses.
270,000
The number of children born after 2003 who have had no immunisations.
HEALTH INDICATORS:
68 per cent
of Iraqis with no access to safe drinking water.
19 per cent
of Iraqis with sewerage access.
© 2006 Independent News
and Media Limited
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