PHA-Exchange> Health NOW! March 17 press release Belgium

[Claudio]

Here's a short report on the press con we held today in Brussels. We had three national dailies attending the press con. Aside from that, we are trying to have an op-ed piece in two national dailies.
Press statement


Iraq, one year after: the campaign Health NOW takes off

The Belgian version of the Health NOW campaign was launched today, March 17, at a press conference on in Brussels. Dr. Jef De Loof, the chairman of the Doctors for Peace (the Flemish affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) and a well-known family doctor himself, said that the prime mission of a doctor is to prevent disease. This explains the health workers' outspokenness against war and violence. Dr. De Loof particularly criticized the US strategy of 'pre-emptive strike' and the development of new weapon systems, to be used in new was, such as the 'mini-nukes'. "What a difference could we make if the money spent on those projects, were used for development", he asked.

In a telephone conversation from Baghdad, where he is on a mission for intal/Medical Aid for the Third World, Dr. Geert Van Moorter said that the war is still on-going. He can hear explosions and shooting every night. He described vividly how under the current occupation, living conditions of most Iraqi's are deteriorating. As a result of the widespread unemployment, people dispose of less cash. Food rations are not assured, and the same holds true for electricity, clean water and sewage. In hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, there's a grave lack of medical supplies and medicines. Dr. Van Moorter doesn't observe any improvement as compared to last year, when he was also in Baghdad: "In the Mansour Hospital, two of the three X-ray machines were operational back then; now it's just a single one."

Cecile Harnie, a militant of the Christian trade union ACV, recently stayed in Iraq for two months, living with common families. She said: "Medicines and medical supplies do come in, but under the protection of US tanks, and with private hospitals for destination. Only he who has the money, will have health care." Mrs. Harnie told about unemployment, humiliation, arrests and resistance. "The resistance is much more active and varied than we would commonly believe", she says. "Every time I went to the center of Baghdad, I would see one or the other demonstration or sit-in."

Finally, Dr. Colette Moulaert, a pediatrician who was in Baghdad with Dr. Van Moorter during last year's bombings, made the link between Iraq and Palestine: in both countries you would have occupation, unemployment, walls - and resistance. As a pediatrician, she spoke out against the fact that a US 'model' is being imposed everywhere, be it through war or through privatization and commercialization, thus degrading the services to be given to the people. She ended with a call for the 20 March rally against war and occupation. 

www.health-now.org en www.intal.be

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