The Iraqi doctor's diary [Aug 2006]
"I am a Senior House Doctor in the ER of the Tallafar hospital, in Northern Iraq. I'm recounting the real incidents and events that I have experienced first hand over the last month".
Girl shot in back by the ING
One case in particular I will never forget is Thikra [not her real name] the 15-year-old girl, shot in the back this month by the ING (Iraqi National Guard) after she tried to prevent the Guards from seizing her father in a house raid.
She underwent emergency abdominal surgery for about three hours, and she fought for her life as she had fought for her father's. She had multiple injuries to her abdominal organs as well as the spinal cord, which left her legs paralysed.
Two days later, the INGs came to the hospital with high ranking officers asking about her health and apologising saying that it was their mistake. Her father had been innocent.
A mortar shell damages the roof of the ambulance area
Iraqi National Guard on drug-fuelled killing spree
Earlier this month, at about 1:30am, the ER was suddenly swarming with shouting and screaming INGs, suffering various injuries. One of them was dead.
Their officer admitted that one of his soldiers had taken ‘hallucination pills’ (a very common occurrence with the INGs and the Iraqi Police nowadays) and that while they were asleep, the doped soldier had started attacking them and they had to kill him. Fortunately the US medics showed up and took the more severely injured among them to the American base at the airport.
Hospitals used as military bunkers
Some hospitals, including ours, have been turned into military bunkers by the ING, using them as a shelter against the mortar shells and snipers. This makes access to the hospital very difficult, as everyone including the doctors has to be searched and stripped of their mobile phones.
These hospitals are now avoided by both doctors in their rota and patients even if it is the nearest hospital available.
Alsalam hospital is an example of a hospital as a military bunker
The case of the four-year-old boy
One day a woman brought her four-year-old child in to the ER. He was suffering severe head trauma from a fall. We did our best with the resources available to us – ie IV, antibiotics, mannitol. He needed a neurosurgery consultation which meant transferral to Mosul City.
The ambulance driver had no petrol, at which point the mother collapsed in tears of anger, frustration and fear. Her only recourse was be to buy petrol from the black market. I don’t know what became of her or her son: she gave up and left with her son and the driver.
I could not help her. The chaotic situation in this country leaves a great bitterness in my heart.
Lack of medical supplies
The Health Ministry doesn’t provide enough medical supplies and I don’t know where these millions of dollars are going. Can you imagine an ER without all this equipment? Let me tell you what it’s like…
The other day, an injured victim was rushed to the ER surrounded by his family, weeping and howling and verbally abusing the medical staff.
Ludicrously, the family was asked to supply an IV set and fluid, bandages, antibiotics, analgesia etc. They had to go to a nearby store that charged them at least 10 times the real price.
In cases like these, if the poor patient is lucky enough to survive until his family’s return from the pharmacy, as this patient was, then we take him to the OR and if the senior surgeon decides to operate on him, we then send his family on another journey to buy (and I hope you will not be shocked) surgical sutures, NG tube etc.
These materials should be available in every standard OR around the world but not in this one. They’re only available on the black market.
Sometimes even the blood bags are missing and anaesthesia drugs too. At times like these, we postpone all surgical operations, excluding the GSW and the explosion victims.
How we live now
Compared to when Iraq was under economical sanctions, the situation now is worse. More children are dying but nowadays it seems no one cares anymore.
However, doctors have seen a huge improvement in our salaries (from 10 dollars a month to 120 dollars), but this is lost in the sudden and rapid increase in the prices, and the loss of security in which many consultants doctors holding high degrees in their field have either been killed or have fled the country because of threats to kill or kidnap them.
In short, my humble opinion is that although some good has happened over the last few years since the fall of Saddam, now it’s worse than ever.
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Blog written for More4 Aug 2006
