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Wednesday, May 07, 2003I asked the only female doctor present how many patients they had treated who had been injured in the fighting, and how many of them were men. She replied that they had treated about 600 patients and that they were mostly men. Dr. Ali quickly corrected her and they began to argue in Arabic. He then announced that it had been about half men and half women. Dr. Ali insisted on being my escort for the remainder of the visit. He explained that the hospital's fifth and sixth floors were reserved for civilians who had been injured in the war. Men were on the sixth floor, women and children on the floor below. The first room off the elevator was filled with the men who had suffered the worst injuries. None of them spoke as the doctor showed me each of their many wounds. I went from room to room without saying a word. It was hard to look at the broken bodies lying in such unsanitary conditions, but I also noticed something else. There was only one man who seemed to be over age 40 on the entire floor. Of the 46 patients I counted, 45 appeared to be in their early twenties. When I visited the women's and children's floor, most of the rooms were empty. Besides Esraa and Nor, there was only one middle-aged woman, who had been wounded in the side by shrapnel. She also was expected to make a full recovery. I asked Dr. Ali why, if these were all civilian casualties, there was not an even distribution of males and females and among age groups. Why did the overwhelming number of them appear to be men of military age? He offered no explanation, but continued to insist that the men were all civilians. He then added that many civilians had been killed, too, and I should check the morgue and see. When I did try to check the morgue, they would not allow me to see any of the wrapped bodies, but did let me go through the paperwork. At my request, a clerk pointed out where the name was supposed to be on each form. Most of the name blocks were blank. Pressed for an explanation he said, "They are not known here." It was only then that it struck me that most of the men lying in the hospital had no family around them — unlike Esraa and Nor, who were surrounded by family members. The clerk's statement probably meant that these men were fighters from Baghdad, who had no relatives in Najaf. It should come as no surprise that Iraqi doctors are prone to exaggerating the extent of American-caused casualties. In a totalitarian regime, those people who embrace the party-line are the ones who get ahead. This is true in all walks of life, not just politics. And it's especially true in fields that require an education in state schools. This happened in Nazi Germany, too. So why aren't reporters more skeptical of Iraqis in positions of authority? Especially after they've witnessed scenes like this? Turns out things aren’t so bad in Baghdad, either : There are more hospital beds available in Baghdad than there are patients to fill them, the U.S. officials said late last week. The International Committee of the Red Cross provided some independent backing for that claim, reporting that the 250-bed Al Na'uman hospital had 90 patients. "The staff are generally less busy now, and carry out five to six surgical interventions a day," the report said. ...Doctors at two Baghdad hospitals — one state-run and the other private — said in interviews that their main business was attending to people with gunshot wounds or burns caused by antilooter and antitheft vigilante activities, score-settling, handling of unexploded ordnance and general lawlessness. ..."The unfortunate part, the problem we have, is we continue to get these offers and donations that really overwhelm the system," she said. "Drugs and medications get outdated. The amount is just too much," she added. "We have enough crutches and bandages to last us 10 years." ...The most important medical need in Iraq now, officials said, is to vaccinate children younger than 5. One in three Iraqi children of that age has not been immunized, whereas almost all children of the same age in neighboring states have had the vaccinations If they have the time and energy to turn their attention to preventive medicine, then things can't be all that bad. And notice that those children haven't been immunized in the past five years. Just what were they doing before the fall of Baghdad? It suggests that the state of medicine may actually be improving in Iraq since the liberation, rather than declining. posted by Sydney on 5/07/2003 08:00:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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