Iraq hospitals in ruins

Have living conditions improved in Iraq since the overthrow of Hussein? The United States government no doubt says "yes," but this report from the NY Times suggests that the healthcare situation in major cities, like Baghdad, is even worse:

To be sure, Iraq's hospitals were in bleak shape before the American-led invasion last year. International isolation and the sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had already shattered a public health care system that was once the jewel of the Middle East. Crucial machines stopped working. Drugs were in short supply.

Conditions eased a bit once the United Nations oil-for-food program started in 1996, but the country still suffered, especially the children.

But Iraqi doctors say the war has pushed them closer to disaster. Fighting and sabotage have destroyed crucial infrastructure and the fall of Saddam Hussein precipitated a breakdown in social order.

"It's definitely worse now than before the war," said Eman Asim, the Ministry of Health official who oversees the country's 185 public hospitals. "Even at the height of sanctions, when things were miserable, it wasn't as bad as this. At least then someone was in control."

Of course, US authorities insist otherwise:

"I've been all around the country and we're better than prewar levels across the board," said Bob Goodwin, an American health adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority who has been working with the Health Ministry since last summer.

But, he added, "there are so many problems, sometimes it is hard to stay on top of everything."

"When we took over in April, it was a total system collapse," he said. "The Health Ministry was literally on fire."

"The fire may be out," as the Times says, but things are definitely not looking too bright:

The violence on the streets has seeped into the wards, with attacks on staff members and feuds being finished in the corridors.

And the list goes on. While Health Ministry officials say no comprehensive health survey has been conducted since the war, several doctors here said that infant mortality is up. Of 48 babies recently brought to the neonatal clinic at Yarmuk Hospital, 19 died, said Tala al-Awqati, a pediatrician. "That is twice as many as last year," she said.

She also said that more women were choosing to give birth at home, increasing the chances of complications, because they were frightened of venturing into the streets to deliver at a hospital.

The Red Cross and the United Nations used to run health programs in Iraq. But after the headquarters of both organizations were bombed last year, foreign experts pulled out.

Doctors also said that the postwar sabotage of the country's primary pharmaceutical factory in Samarra and the looting of the central supply depot in Baghdad had depleted the country of needed supplies.

"Last week a man bled to death right in front of me because we didn't have any IV's," said Ali Qasim, an emergency room doctor at Baghdad Central Hospital.

Then there is the experiment with democracy. After Mr. Hussein's government fell, doctors decided to pick their own leaders. "They told us this is the democratic way," said Dr. Asim, the Health Ministry official. "Now we have dentists in charge of surgery centers."

Despite signs of a public health crisis, medical experts here say it is hard to get foreign donors to pay attention. "Bombs and elections -- that's all people on the outside seem interested in," said Khalil Sayyad, head of the Baghdad office of Medicos del Mundo, a Spanish organization working on health projects.

I hope I'm not the only one who finds it amazing (criminal, too) that this administration would go through on an invasion of a sovereign country without a plan on how to run it once the ruling power was displaced.

Because of the arrogance and ignorance of bureaucrats on the other side of the globe, Iraqis are left with stuff like this: a dilapidated health care system low on the list of priorities of the occupational authorities that periodically gets money thrown at it, without much care given as to how the fundamental problems on the ground might be best addressed.