Iraqi Medical System Wrecked by War

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

02-18) 14:41 PST BAGHDAD, (AP) --

Already a troubled system, Iraqi medical care has fallen to the brink of collapse since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago. Scores of doctors have been slain, cancer patients have to hunt down their own drugs — even IV fluid is in short supply. On Tuesday, a former deputy health minister and the head of the ministry's security force will stand trial, a year after they were accused of letting Shiite death squads use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings.

Specialists are hard to find. At one point, Baghdad — a city of more than 5 million — had no neurosurgeon, said Dr. Hussein al-Hilli, director of the Ibn Albitar Hospital in Baghdad.

"This was something that was horrible because we had many head injuries, many spinal injuries," al-Hilli said. He described "big shortages of drugs, big shortages of everything" — including IV fluid. "This simple thing, we don't have."

Like so many areas of life in Iraq, the health care crisis is vast and complex, and there is no quick solution to improve conditions for doctors and patients.

According to figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry released earlier this year, 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, as well as medics and other health care workers, have been killed nationwide since 2003, among the professionals from many fields caught up in Iraq's sectarian violence.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/18/international/i111349S74.DTL

[LynnTheDem]

1. Iraqis' lives better under Saddam Hussein than under George W. bUsh.

Plain FACT.

And the entire world knows it.

[Jacobin]

2. That is the undeniable truth

I like to mention that to Iraq invasion apologists and it freaks them out. But they know, even though they won't admit it, that it is true.

[leftchick]

4. well, the entire world except

the god blessed USA! :puke:

[ckramer]

5. Bush owes Saddam an apology

Invasion completely destroyed Iraq.

Lives of Iraqis has been ruined.

Hope has been destroyed.

It's been hell for most of the Iraqis since the invasion.

[Sal Minella]

3. Unbearably sad. The Persians were doing eye surgeries when my ancestors were still hitting each

other over the head with rocks.

[EFerrari]

6. Sadly, number five. n/t

[pingzing58]

7. All of the Doctors left and are now in exile.

[slipslidingaway]

8. The Iraqi Brain Drain

So many have left :(

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174892

"Losing Precious Resources


...In early 2006, the United States Committee on Refugees and Immigrants estimated that a full 40% of Iraqi's professional class had left the country, taking with them their irreplaceable expertise. Universities and medical facilities were particularly hard hit, with some reporting less than 20% of needed staff on hand. The oil industry suffered from what the Wall Street Journal called a "petroleum exodus" that included the departure of two-thirds of its top 100 managers, as well as significant numbers of managerial and professional workers.

Even before the huge 2007 exodus from Baghdad, the United Nations Commissioner of Refugees warned that "the skills required to provide basic services are becoming more and more scarce," pointing particularly to doctors, teachers, computer technicians, and even skilled craftsmen like bakers.

By mid-2007, the loss of these resources was visible in the everyday functioning of Iraqi society. By then, medical facilities commonly required patients' families to act as nurses and technicians and were still unable to perform many services. Schools were often closed, or opened only sporadically, because of an absence of qualified teachers. Universities postponed or canceled required courses or qualifying examinations because of inadequate staff. At the height of an incipient cholera epidemic in the summer of 2007, water purification plants were idled because needed technicians could not be found.

The most devastating impact of the Iraqi refugee crisis, however, has probably been on the very capacity of the national government (which de-Baathification and privatization had already left in a fragile state) to administer anything. In every area that such a government might touch, the missing managerial, technical, and professional talent and expertise has had a devastating effect, with post-war "reconstruction" particularly hard hit. Even the ability of the government to disperse its income (mostly from oil revenues) has been crippled by what cabinet ministers have termed "a shortage of employees trained to write contracts" and "the flight of scientific and engineering expertise from the country."

[izquierdista]

11. What lack of expertise?

I understand that there are a lot of * Pioneers and Republican fund-raisers there, working in a contractor capacity. You mean they can't fix it? :sarcasm:

[slipslidingaway]

13. The only question is... Who are they fixing it for? :( n/t

[trthnd4jstc]

9. Can we get a fund going to help the Iraqis with this.

I will only have a few bucks, but everyone adding what they can, it will help. Further, I promise, once the income tax return comes in, I will send DU what I can afford.

[Doctor Cynic]

10. At least the US successfully brought them US-style health care.

[OneBlueSky]

12. everything in Iraq has been wrecked by this war . . .

hell, the entire country is a wreck . . . Iraqis were FAR better off under Saddam, despite whatever cruelties he may have been responsible for . . . nothing he did can compare to the damage BushCo has done to this country . . .