What can we do with injured Iraqis?
U.S. efforts to construct medical facilities in Iraq have been a miserable failure.
The number of seriously wounded Iraqis is estimated at nearly a million. Over 2,000 doctors have been killed and assassinated in Baghdad. Out of a force of about 190,000, more than 12,000 Iraqi police have been killed. More than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed. One in eight Iraqi children perish before their fifth birthday.
“The medical-care system in Iraq is in shambles.” A few years ago, looters were able to destroy morale very quickly by looting the health-care system. It was highly organized, focused on hospitals, the public health-care system, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical warehouses, and it was unrelenting. Doctors and nurses had their homes looted if they left for work.
The rules of war
The Geneva conventions require that the sick and wounded be treated with “particular protection and respect.” Article 56 of the fourth convention states that “the public Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining . . . medical and hospital establishments and services, public health, and hygiene in the occupied territory.” More than a dozen articles in all govern necessary medical measures, from issues of medical supplies to physician security.
Prior American activity
America once had a blueprint for humanitarian efforts in an occupied country. Before and during the Vietnam War, the United States had a coordinated and efficient system in place to maintain and stabilize health care for Vietnamese civilians, which was initially established by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In a joint effort by USAID and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, the military implemented four civilian-oriented programs. The combined effect of these four programs was an astounding level of health care.
Even in the midst of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military succeeded in building three hospitals that provided 1,100 beds to civilians. “Vietnam was a time when the world respected the U.S. for that kind of commitment.”
American medics engaged in nearly 40 million civilian encounters in Vietnam. Now the military medics treat about 2,000 Iraqis a year.
What happened?
Traditionally, the lead responsibility for humanitarian efforts has fallen to USAID, but Bush dissolved the program. “The Bush Administration violated every single tenet that has been known in humanitarian circles for decades.”
Iraqi hospitals are unable to handle the level of severity we’re passing on. “There are a number of patients that we transfer into the Iraqi health-care system who will not survive,” says Maj. Jack Emps, a nurse on the Iraqi intensive care unit. Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under U.S. Occupation report that at Arabic Children’s Hospital, patients brought their own food because the hospital lacked funds to provide meals.
The U.S. military does not provide security for Iraqi hospitals, now corrupt and infiltrated by officers of the Saddam regime allegedly in charge of security in at least one of Iraq’s public hospitals.
The five page article at Discover Magazine concludes,
Shiite or Sunni, there won’t be any rehab, disability payments, or Medicare. …there is no promise of health or peace.