posted April 09, 2003 at 10:11 a.m. MDT* The International Committee of the Red Cross
* Catholic Relief Services - Iraq Humanitarian Response
* International Blue Crescent Relief And Development Foundation - Activities
* Catholic Near East Welfare Association - Press Releases
Baghdad Doctors Low on Medical Supplies [washingtonpost.com] - "Baghdad's hard-pressed surgeons, flooded with war-wounded, are amputating the limbs of children and adults with too few anesthetics to block the pain and too few antibiotics to protect the patients, a Greek doctor newly arrived from Iraq reported Saturday.
"They don't have drugs," Dr. Dimitrius Mognie said. "I saw it myself. I opened the cabinets."
Mognie's account, after a full day touring hospitals during the U.S. bombardment, was a firsthand substantiation of a report by World Health Organization officials here, who said Friday the Iraqi capital was running low on anesthetics, analgesics and surgical items."
Body bags, anesthetics lacking, surgeons sleep-deprived [San Francisco Chronicle] Red Cross Aid - "...Some help arrived Monday from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which delivered 100 kits of surgery supplies that include anesthetics, serums and bandages. The agency has delivered more than 7,000 such kits in the past two weeks throughout Iraq, said spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin.
"We are increasingly concerned," he said. "If street fighting becomes widespread in the urban area, health facilities could become totally overwhelmed." "
Baghdad's hospitals 'overwhelmed'; Doctors are said to be exhausted [bbc.co.uk] - "The fighting in Baghdad is taking an increasing toll on the Iraqi capital's hospitals, according to the Red Cross. [...] The hospital only had enough medical supplies to last for another two days, he added.
A Red Cross spokeswoman in Geneva, Antonella Notari, said the organisation might need to bring extra supplies into Baghdad from warehouses in Iran, Kuwait, Jordan or Syria, depending on the length of the fighting, the number of new casualties and security guarantees.
The United Nations has described the situation in Baghdad's hospitals as "critical", while the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of a health emergency both in Baghdad and in the country as a whole. "
Baghdad hospitals pushed to the limit Supply of drugs and water run low [guardian.co.uk] - "... In Geneva ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani warned that "hospitals have reached their limit". There were not enough anaesthetics, she added.
The World Health Organisation also reported a "shortage of equipment to deal with burns, shrapnel wounds and spinal injuries" and described the situation in the hospitals as "critical".
A doctor at Kindi hospital in the north-east of the city reported treating "injuries to the head, to the chest, to the limbs" as fighting intensified. The hospital had medical supplies to last for only another two days, he warned.
The ICRC is considering sending in extra supplies from its warehouses in Kuwait, Jordan or Syria but is awaiting guarantees of any convoy's safety. Casualty figures continue to rise but both the ICRC and the WHO say they unable to provide even an estimate of the number of Iraqis killed and wounded. "Nobody is adding up all the numbers, but it's clear they are huge," a WHO spokesman said."
Supplies are few, concerns are many at struggling hospital [boston.com] - '... "'The medical system has suffered from chronic underinvestment for many years, but it has quality people working there,'' said Colonel John Graham, a doctor who has been overseeing military site visits to hospitals in the southern Iraqi towns of Basra, Zubayr, Safwan, and Umm Qasr. ''If we can keep the system supported while they reestablish themselves over the next days and weeks, I'm sure it will be a very good medical service.'' But conditions didn't look so good at the ramshackle and malodorous Umm Qasr Hospital yesterday.
Dozens of test tubes with traces of dried blood filled a sink in the laboratory, left there because there was not enough water to wash them. The only clean test tubes were the broken ones.
[...]
A 60-year-old man languished in a sweltering, putrid-smelling room with flies buzzing around him. He had leg injuries, suffered, he said, when a shell hit his house during fighting between Iraqi and coalition forces.
''I don't know what Saddam Hussein wants; I don't know what Mr. Bush wants,'' said the injured man, Ali Walli, his speech slightly slurred and his eyelids heavy, as his daughter pleaded with visitors to take him to Kuwait for surgery. ''The victim is not Saddam Hussein and not Mr. Bush. I am the victim,'' he said.
