The Hindu : Many Alis await treatment in Iraq

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Saturday, Apr 19, 2003

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International

Many Alis await treatment in Iraq

A five-year-old Iraqi boy, Ali Mustafa, is comforted by his mother at the Saddam hospital, Baghdad, on Thursday. Ali and his four brothers were injured when a cluster bomb they found in the garden of their home exploded. The others suffered facial and hand injuries. — AP

Baghdad April 18. Ali Ismail Abbas, the 12-year-old Baghdad boy who lost both arms in an American air raid, arrived in Kuwait in the glare of the world's media, but doctors say Baghdad's chaotic hospitals contain hundreds of other casualties.

Ali is one of the lucky few to escape Baghdad where staff shortages, looting on an immense scale and power blackouts have forced the total or partial closure of three of the main hospitals.

With no transport and regular gunfire in the streets, Baghdad's doctors and nurses are unable to reach their hospitals, contributing to the health system's collapse. Dr. Zakaria Arajy, acting manager of al-Shahid Adnan hospital, said that only 10 per cent of staff were turning up for work.

"Cases are not treated properly,'' said Dr. Arajy. "I am not proud of the service I am giving. I and all the staff in the hospital are doing our best. But it is not even second best, it is tenth best.''

Chiwader hospital, in the volatile slum of Saddam City in eastern Baghdad, is the capital's only general hospital still operating at full capacity. Over the last 27 days it has had to cope with more than 850 civilian war casualties.

"There is a big shortage of power. I did surgery with a kerosene lamp,'' said Jacques Beres (61), a Belgian doctor with Aide Medicale Internationale, a French charity. Dr. Beres has performed 50 operations since the onset of the war less than four weeks ago.

The Red Cross said that the situation in Baghdad was slowly improving as looting subsided. While the flow of new casualties has abated, hospitals are still treating civilians wounded during three weeks of allied air bombardment. —

Ali improving

Reuters reports:

The badly burned child amputee who has become an icon of civilian suffering in the Iraq war was improving after having skin grafts, one of the doctors treating him said.

Ali Ismaeel Abbas (12), lost his lower arms, was orphaned and received severe burns when a missile hit his home during the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein. Doctors had warned he would die if he did not receive specialist treatment quickly.

Dr. Imad al-Najada told Reuters yesterday the boy, now in Ibn Sina hospital in Kuwait, had begun eating food and drinking normally after recovering from initial surgery to place a temporary graft over the deep burns covering his chest, abdomen, and groin.

``His condition is much better...he has started to eat and drink normally.''

He said journalists could not visit Ali at the moment but that the doctors were hoping lots of food and rest would give him the strength to undergo further skin grafts.

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