It is the daily death toll from terrorist bombs and sectarian slayings that makes the headlines in Iraq. But behind these stories lies the arguably greater tragedy of men, women and children grievously injured and maimed by the attacks. For every corpse there are generally many still alive who will be forced to exist with crippling impairments. These inflict a significant burden on families who must care for them.
This horrible state of affairs is now being compounded by the virtual collapse of the Iraqi hospital system. On top of the frequent lack of electricity, there is a dearth of drugs and oxygen and now to cap matters, there is an ever-diminishing number of surgeons, doctors and nurses to care for the sick and wounded. Rehabilitation and the fitting of artificial limbs for the maimed are now virtually nonexistent.
The reason for this appalling situation is the exodus of qualified professionals from the country. Iraq might be able to do without its lawyers and accountants for a while, but it medical practitioners are another matter. It is believed that several thousand doctors have sought safety in Jordan and, to a lesser extent, in Syria. There, if they cannot find work in those countries’ health systems, they minister privately to the large expatriate Iraqi community.
It is far too easy to blame these individuals for deserting their country in time of need. The reprehensible fact is that the terrorists have been targeting medical personnel deliberately. Many highly qualified Iraqi doctors are Sunni but the death squads and the bombers have not discriminated between Sunni and Shiite. They have attacked the entire health establishment.
Elsewhere in the world, despite the bitterness of civil troubles, doctors, nurses and paramedics are generally seen as neutral. Their obligation to help the sick and injured regardless of background is accepted. But not in Iraq. Not only are the terrorists bent upon the mad destruction of civil society, but they are also homing in on the very people who could help to bind up the wounds produced by the conflict. The depravity of their attacks extends even to hospital managers, who have been singled out for kidnap and murder. In truth, despite the billions of dollars that were supposed to have been spent by the Americans in rebuilding a health service debilitated by years of UN sanctions, very little physical improvement has taken place. Indeed many hospitals now lack simple items such as clean linen.
Having been thoroughly looted and damaged in the criminal anarchy, Washington’s lack of planning led to after the invasion, some hospitals are barely able to function at all. One Iraqi surgeon who has fled with his family to Amman remembers that his hospital had sewage leaking across the floors. It was not, he said, fit even for operating on animals. When the madness ends and peace returns, so too will most of these doctors. But in the meantime, ordinary Iraqis who are too poor to flee must suffer and perhaps die needlessly in squalor.
