PHA-Exchange> Belgian doctor in Baghdad

[Bert De Belder]

Dr. Geert Van Moorter through satellite telephone

 

"Today in one civilian hospital: 2 dead and 30 injured"

 

"From this morning until late this afternoon, Dr. Colette Moulaert and me were at the Al-Yarmouk hospital. Some thirty injured were brought to the hospital. Apparently, a bomb had struck in the vicinity. I was at the emergency ward where I saw 2 dead and several injured patients because of shrapnels.

The hospital staff already knows us. While other westerners, mostly journalists, are given a short tour, we can freely accompany the doctors. An orthopedic surgeon called me in his consultation room and asked me advice on some of his patients. We exchanged experiences with pain management. It made a welcome change for the psycho-social support we usually give.

When you get to know the hospital from the inside, you notice the shortages: some pain relievers and antibiotics for example. But at a press conference I heard vice-president Ramadan reiterate that Iraq doesn't need humanitarian assistance. What is needed is the end of the US aggression and the sanctions, and the unfreezing of Iraqi bank accounts. Iraq is too proud to beg for humanitarian aid and understandably so.

But the Iraqi health authorities welcome the assistance of organizations--like Medical Aid for the Third World--that work in the first place for the removal of the root causes of the Iraqi people's suffering, the armed aggression of the US and the UK, and that show their solidarity with the Iraqi people.

Do you want to hear another anecdote about the weapons inspections? Today we also dropped in at the El-Mustansiriya University. It has been under fire for five days although it had been searched thoroughly by the weapons inspectors who proclaimed it free of weapons. And still it was a target for the US! Are you surprised that the people here say the weapons inspections only served to identify targets for the bombings?"
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