Hope fades at Basra hospital

2003-04-11 18:37

Basra - She cradled her newlywed son, waved swarming flies away for the hundredth time and wept with every breath he took.

In three days, he will be dead. Maybe two.

Medical staff at Basra General Hospital can do little but stand and watch, stripped of the medicines and blood supplies that would save his life.

The man is Nagim Abdul Nabiy, a 25-year-old Iraqi architect, who has been at the hospital for four months, arriving just weeks after he was married.

He lies in a semi-conscious state viewing the stifling Ward 15 through runny bloodshot eyes. The bed is propped up by makeshift repairs, the temperature approaches 100 degrees Farenheit by mid-afternoon and the tiger-print sheets are already soaked with sweat.

Paint peels off the walls, open windows invite more flies and the floor is littered with dust and debris.

Nagim is suffering from a bone disease described by doctors, who have long since left for the day, as chronic.

"There is no medication at all," said ward assistant Ali Haffat. "We have a blood bank, but no blood.

"Since the war started, we have had no power so he's just getting worse.

"A specialist came down from Baghdad and diagnosed him. We were keeping him alive with transfusions before, but now there is no blood, no power, no hope.

"He will last another two or three days. It's very sad, but really, what can we do? We have given him all the analgesic we had, but now..."

Nagim's father, Abdul Nabiy, rose from the bedside where he had clutched his son's hand and reassured him quietly.

He wiped away tears, grabbed our interpreter by the arm and told us: "He is my only son. He is a good man, a proud man, an educated man.

Too young to die

"He is a family man with a wife, but not even any children yet. He is too young to die like this."

He slumped back into his bedside vigil with a shake of his head and a comforting arm from his weeping wife Bahiya Mathood.

There are only 90 patients in the crumbling 400-bed complex, built by the British in 1921 and known as Republican Basra Hospital until last week.

The faded images of Saddam Hussein at the main gates survived until the arrival of coalition soldiers.

An accompanying promise that "the confidence the Iraqi people have in their President will burn the American hopes" can still be read but "only because we can't find any paint" said one bystander, who took out a banknote from his pocket and gleefully spat on the president's grinning image.

Inside the main reception, painted murals show children undergoing surgery while soldiers stand guard and Saddam smiles down from a messianic pose.

In the harsh reality of the wards there are still children, but none are getting surgery. There are no guards and few nurses.

Many of the doctors only stay a few hours. They check to see whether any power supply has been set up, they check on their few remaining patients and then they retire to their private practices, thriving with wartime injuries.

Many of those wounded in fighting and B-52 bombing raids over the past three weeks decided they would be better treated at home rather than the hospital.

No power

The X-ray department door was open, with around 25 people milling around outside, but the official attendant said: "They come here every day and wait, then they go home at night. I've told them there is no power so no X-rays, but maybe they think the British will turn it on again today."

However, electricity may not cure all the ills at Basra General.

Rumours abound that doctors are stealing medical aid intended for the hospital and charging exorbitant rates to dispense it from their private clinics.

"We have heard the reports and we will investigate them," said Lieutenant Colonel John Nash, of the British Royal Logistic Corps, overseeing a delivery of drinking water to the hospital.

"The facilities here can be restored. We are making the first steps with medical aid ready to be delivered within the next few days, then aid organisations will take over."

Back in Ward 15, Nagim Nabiy will not survive to see this new era take shape.

His carer, Ali Haffat, shook his head. "We need everything you can give us; water, medicine, food and electricity. If we don't get these things soon this will not be a hospital. It will be a morgue."

- AFX