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Baby Bust
By: Rosie Garthwaite
Published date: 31/8/2003
Samer Jemi, chief gynecologist and obstetrician at Al-Talimi hospital in Basra, displays arms that are yellowed from the iodine she had been forced to scrub up with during operations she had performed that morning.
“We have no water today. I just lost a baby that could have survived had we been able to operate with the right equipment and under the right conditions. Most days we can do nothing for our patients,” she said.
Jemi’s frustration is shared across the country. Assessments by the International Committee of the Red Cross, World Health Organization and gynecologists across Iraq suggest increases in the numbers of miscarriages of between 50 percent and 70 percent.
“Officials put this on account of instability, insecurity, job uncertainty, i.e. stress, but also on the lack of drugs and equipment,” said UNICEF spokesman Damien Gugliermina.
“A Department of Health official mentioned that out of 25 cases examined yesterday, only eight could get the appropriate medicine,” said Gugliermina.
While many hospitals in Baghdad now receive consistent water and electricity, conditions in Basra “are getting worse rather than better.” Gugliermina said. Hospitals there receive 10 percent of the water they need daily and must transport the enormous quantities of petrol needed for the generators through unstable streets. They have had no morphine for two months and their pharmacies run a constant shortage of other necessary drugs and oxygen.
Due to the lack of basic services, a large number of hospitals have been closed, putting greater pressure on remaining hospitals and requiring patients to travel further for care.
“There is no antenatal care –– all primary care units closed during the war. Women are ill-educated about the symptoms that causes of problems and therefore arrive to us at too late a stage for us to be able to help,” Gugliermina said.
“We used to see one or two cases a day and now it is more like 10 or 15,” said Jemi. “The causes of miscarriages have increased greatly since the war - hypertension, renal diseases, diabetes, collagen problems, severe anemia. Cases of interuterine or fetal tumors especially have increased exponentially.”
“Now to come across malignant tumor seems normal –– it used to be rare,” said Sabah Said, a gynecologist at Baghdad hospital.
A combination of stress and malnutrition is blamed for an increase of 50 percent in cases of impotence and infertility. In addition “the amount of couples seeking contraception has increased four times since the beginning of the war,” said one doctor at Mansur Teaching Hospital in Medical City.
Before the bombing of the Canal Hotel, UNICEF, which is responsible for the distribution of 700,000 liters of water daily in southern Iraq had hoped to distribute 153,000 obstetrical kits, but it is unclear how much their projects, which included a full assessment of the needs of maternity wards in the country, will be scaled down.
Published date: 31/8/2003
Author: Rosie Garthwaite
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