Baghdad doctors despair at hospital's filthy conditions and lack of drugs

By Julius Strauss in Baghdad

5 June 2004

Yasser has only days to live. He is 11. His arms are bruised, his legs have wasted away and his gums are clogged with blood - a result of the leukaemia that has ravaged his body.

Yesterday he lay on a soiled sheet and grimaced with pain in the Central Teaching Hospital for Children, the leading paediatric unit in Baghdad once known as the Saddam Children's Hospital.

As his father, Muhamad Khalid, rubbed Yasser's legs soothingly he turned to his parents in despair and said: "Perhaps this is my last day."

In the last 48 hours four children in Yasser's ward have died. Some, perhaps, would have succumbed even with the best treatment available. But doctors say most of them would probably have lived.

They have died because of the filthy conditions, the irregular supply of drugs for chemotherapy and the poor quality of the medicine they are forced to take.

"If I had a wish-list I wouldn't know where to begin," said Suzan Al-Zubaidy, the duty doctor, who earns about £80 a month. We could start with chemotherapy drugs, proper antibiotics, drips and blood transfusion sets. That alone would save a lot of lives."

Baghdad's most famous children's hospital should never have come to this.

Under Saddam the appalling conditions were cynically manipulated by the regime which blamed UN sanctions for the deaths of tens of thousands of children.

Sympathetic media and apologists for Saddam were wheeled around the wards as officials explained how the evil West was killing their children.

Western officials retorted by blaming Saddam. They said it was the regime's inefficiency and Saddam's insistence that his money be spent on weapons not health that was leading to their deaths.

But 14 months into a US-led administration, the children are still dying, the supply of drugs is still erratic and the specialists still rely on diagnostic equipment that is decades old.

In the wards the walls are crumbling, bare electric wires hang from the ceiling and dirty water runs down the walls from broken pipes.

With the daytime temperature touching 45C and due to rise further there is no air conditioning and many parents place their children on the floor next to broken windows in the corridor to provide them with some relief.

Only four of the nine wards in the hospital are open at all. "Of course Saddam created this," said Miss Al-Zubaidy. "But the Americans promised us so many times that they would end it. And to date they have done nothing to help at all."

Some of the reason for the children's plight doubtless lies with the Iraqi insurgents. Targeted killings of foreigners have led many companies to flee. Bandit-infested roads mean convoys of equipment are often delayed or never arrive.

But while the Coalition Provisional Authority, which hands over power to a new government at the end of the month, has spent millions on media facilities, roadblocks and security guards, the project to revamp the children's hospital seems to have been quietly forgotten.

"The incubators are not working and instruments are not available even for routine tests," said Dr Adil El-Badri, who runs the unit for premature births. "The whole hospital needs serious repairs but it seems there is no money."

In the cancer ward the parents have little idea who is to blame for the drug shortage and the squalor. They spend their days huddled around their dying children, praying for a miracle. Yasser, excited to see a visitor, tries a brave "What is your name?" in English but the effort appears to exhaust him.

His father, a driver, said: "They told us that he can only be saved now by a bone marrow transplant. The nearest place we can do it is Jordan and none of the doctors knows how to arrange it or how much it costs."

In the next room Zaid Mohammad, nine, was also very sick. Like the other leukaemia patients he should be kept isolated, away from infections that could kill him, but there is no room.

His mother gently sponges his legs with a dirty cloth to try to cool him. Tears roll down her face.

Rana, the doctor looking after him, said: "He's in remission now and we're hopeful he will survive. But we need new machines, equipment and medicine if we are to save these children's lives.

"You westerners always come here, you look, you shake your heads and then you go away. And nothing changes. It's no better here this year than it was last year. "Always promises, just promises."