U.S. Gives Iraqi Hospitals Broken Promises in Place of Medicine

[Alpharetta]

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=647

U.S. Gives Iraqi Hospitals Broken Promises in Place of Medicine
by Dahr Jamail

Baghdad , Jul 5 - Despite promises of over $1 billion in US funding, hospital patients in Iraq continue to suffer ongoing hardship. Problems plaguing Iraqi hospitals fifteen months into what has been a brutal, bloody occupation range from ongoing medicine and equipment shortages to an overall lack of proper medical infrastructure.

"We are getting less medical supplies now than we were during the sanctions," said Dr. Namin Rashid, the Chief Resident Doctor at Yarmouk Hospital. "Paul Bremer came here and talked a lot at the beginning of the occupation, but nothing has changed," Rashid added, referring to the recently departed civilian administrator of the Coalition Provision Authority.
....
At Al-Kerkh General Hospital, Dr. Sarmad Raheem is an orthopedic surgeon who is also the assistant manager of the hospital’s chief doctors. "We are short of everything here," he said. According to Dr. Raheem, the hospital was suffering from a shortage of basic antibiotics and medications such as hydrocortisone and painkillers. "We even have to send our patients to the market to buy plates and screws they need for their own operations," he said.

During a tour of the hospital’s critical care unit, Dr. Raheem stopped to point out an overflowing toilet, from which human feces spilled onto an already messy bathroom floor. "We can’t afford cleaners," he said, "and even lack ultra-violet lights for sterilizing our equipment."

More at link: http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=647
plus some pics

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. how long before

Iraqi's are hopping over the border into Canada to get medicine?

[Ilsa]

2. I've been getting emails from

a nurses' association about sending old textbooks to Iraq for their nursing schools, etc. I kept wondering why we should have to do that if my tax dollars are going towards rebuilding their instituions of higher learning. (Or are they????)

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Hmm...same thing our senior citizens got from Bush.

Color me shocked.

[struggle4progress]

4. Where the @#$! did all the money go? eom

[atreides1]

5. Good Question

But who do we ask? We can't ask the politicians, they don't seem to know much of anything, we can't ask Chimpy, we know he doesn't anything, maybe we should ask Zelda the Gypsy?