Digest by David Smith-Ferri, Voices in the Wilderness

Several articles follow a brief summary of urgent health care conditions in Iraq.

Summary

While conditions for most Iraqis continue to deteriorate, as the country slips even more deeply into an environmental and health crisis, George Bush and his supporters danced to country music on the evening of election day, celebrating the War President’s reelection. If not exactly dancing on Iraqi graves, it is close enough to create the same revolting effect.

Consider this: in October, the Iraqi Ministry of Health in Baghdad produced the first detailed report of the health of Iraqis since the escalation of war in March, 2003. The report is alarming. Iraq’s network of health centers, already crippled by neglect, poorly provisioned, and understaffed 19 months, is worse now. Looting in the aftermath of the March invasion, increased violence, insecurity, and a chronic lack of medicines are contributing to the current crisis: a system that is clearly overwhelmed by the health needs of the population.

Because critical infrastructure repairs, especially those to the electrical grid and to water and sewer treatment facilities, have not been completed (in most cases, not even commenced), raw sewage continues to pour into drinking water supplies and deadly infectious diseases are rampant throughout the country. Almost 20% of urban households and 60% of rural households lack access to safe drinking water, leading to a surge in typhoid and hepatitis cases in 2004.

The report also chronicles increasing poverty: in 2003, an estimated 27 per cent of the population lived on less than $2 a day. Children have always borne the brunt of the health crisis in Iraq. Today, one third of children are chronically malnourished, putting their lives at serious risk from outbreaks of measles, mumps, and jaundice, which are infecting thousands. And there is a growing problem among children of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Articles