Doctors forced to carry guns in ‘catastrophic’ hospital conditions

HOSPITALS in Baghdad were in “catastrophic” condition, aid workers said yesterday, with the remaining few doctors carrying arms due to looting and near anarchy in the power vacuum left

With assault-rifles on their shoulders, doctors in white overshirts were treating patients at the emergency room of the Saddam Hospital for Children (SHC) in the Mansur central neighbourhood.

The bands of looters who have fanned the streets of Baghdad to take anything they could lay their hands on have even broken into hospitals. They stole medicines, stethoscopes, towels, air conditioners and even incubators.

Ambulances are seen roaming the streets, driven by excited youths puffing on cigarettes. At the SHC emergency room there is a shortage of doctors.

Children were being buried in the backyard of the hospital due to the lack of space, electricity and security in the morgue.

“Out of the 32 hospitals in Baghdad, only three are currently operating, and not in a normal manner,” Pascal Jansen, a coordinator from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said.

“The hospitals are suffering severe shortages of water, power and fuel. They do not have doctors or staff. They can only last in this situation for the next three or four days,” he said.

The ICRC has called on US-led forces in Iraq to protect hospitals and water supplies from looters as many parts of the country descended into chaos.

At Saddam Medical City, the capital’s largest medical centre, only 10 per cent of the doctors and staff were still working.

“In the last 10 days, I probably only slept 10 hours,” said an eye surgeon. “All the patients have been sent home because we cannot care for them anymore.

"We are only receiving those who are being wounded by the gunshots, mostly related to looting.”

Outside the hospital, a gruesome smell hung in the air as people waited at the front door with bleeding wounds. Two bodies lay on the sidewalk for hours, near a refrigerated truck with corpses seen from the opened doors.

“The situation of the hospitals is chaotic and catastrophic,” said ICRC medical coordinator Peter Tarabula.