TOKYO, 28 May 2004 — Iraqi doctors, school teachers and religious leaders said yesterday they have asked Japan for help in improving water treatment and sewage disposal, building playgrounds for children and training doctors.
Dr. Hassan Aldager, an internist at a hospital in the southern city of Samawah, said he told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that the roughly 500 Japanese ground troops there had made a big difference repairing roads and schools and providing medical support.
But he said residents now want help in other ways. A poor sewage system and scarcity of clean water outside the city are threatening public health, and a lack of playgrounds and other recreation facilities means children have no place to play, he said.
Aldager also said doctors in Samawah’s main hospital lack the expertise to use basic diagnosis tools, and patients in serious condition are often sent north to Baghdad, where they can wait up to nine months to receive treatment.
“The prime minister promised he would do these things,” Aldager said.
The group is on a weeklong visit to Japan at the invitation of the Tokyo Foundation, a private aid group. Yesterday, the teachers visited a Tokyo primary school, and the doctors toured medical facilities.
Aftakhar Hwaili, a primary school teacher of Arabic, said she realized just how far Iraq had fallen behind wealthy countries when she saw Japanese students taking computer lessons in spotless classrooms.
“Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, we were robbed of our guaranteed rights. In Japan, teachers and students clearly have guaranteed rights and it shows,” Hwaili said.
Before heading home next Monday, the Iraqis will see how doctors in the western city of Hiroshima treat survivors of the US atomic bomb attack during World War II and seek advice on caring for cancer patients believed to have been exposed to depleted uranium shells used by US and British forces.
