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WASHINGTON
- May 2 - The United States-led
coalition has failed to meet its responsibility under international
humanitarian law to ensure that the health and well being of the
Iraqi people is being provided for, stated the international
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) today. Urgent medical needs are not being
addressed and disorganization in hospitals is posing a threat to
the health of people in the country. MSF again demands that the
US-led coalition, as the occupying power, immediately fulfill its
obligation to provide for the medical needs of the Iraqi people
which it has thus far not done.
"Despite three weeks of the US occupation and many months of
planning for this war, Baghdad, a city the size of Houston and
Chicago combined, still does not have any fully functioning
hospitals," said Morten Rostrup, MD, MSF International Council
president, who has just returned from 6 weeks in Baghdad. "Disorder
and political struggles in Baghdad and elsewhere have left the
health system in disarray at a time when the recent bombings, that
included the use of cluster bombs, and ongoing hostilities,
including injuries to civilians, make access to health care all the
more critical."
The U.S. gave priority to efforts and concerns in building
administration, forgetting to organize immediate assistance to the
wounded. It also failed to provide timely security for hospitals
and medical staff. In Baghdad, hospitals are filthy, many were
looted, and no proper emergency transport system is in place.
People wounded in the war who fled or were discharged from
hospitals during the anarchy of the first days of US occupation had
little idea where to go to receive follow-up treatments for their
often serious injuries, including amputations. And since hospitals
are still not fully functioning patients continue to be discharged
early. Sufferers of chronic conditions such as diabetes, kidney
disease, and epilepsy have nowhere to refill their medications.
Iraqi doctors and nurses have still not been paid. In the hospitals
that MSF has visited in Baghdad and other parts of the country,
including Amarah, Basrah, Karbala, Nasariya, and elsewhere, there
are life-threatening illnesses, such as tuberculosis and kala azar,
that are going untreated due to lack of medicines.
MSF has tried to fill the gaps in medical assistance in Baghdad
and elsewhere by providing medicines, supplies, and assistance
where necessary, but a lack of plans to attend to the immediate
health needs and power struggles and the absence clear lines of
authority in Iraqi hospitals and the health system as a whole is
posing the greatest challenge to health in the country.
"Fortunately, MSF teams in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq have
not yet detected signs of epidemics, large displacements of people,
or acute malnutrition that would constitute a major catastrophe on
the scale of what we are witnessing elsewhere in the world today,"
stated Dr. Rostrup. "Nevertheless, there are important, unaddressed
health needs, and any further delay by the US in reestablishing
essential medical services is costing lives and heightening the
risk that epidemics and other health problems may arise."
MSF currently has 30 international aid workers in Iraq and
surrounding countries and is carrying out assessments in all major
cities, including Baghdad, Basra, Karbala, Tikrit, Nasariya, and
Mossul, to determine the needs and provide medical assistance where
necessary.
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