Q Were you surprised by the degree of looting that occurred almost instantly?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I wasn't surprised at all.
Q You were not? Why?
THE PRESIDENT: I mean, these were people that hated the regime under which they lived.
Q But they went after hospitals and museums and --
THE PRESIDENT: I don't like that part.
Q Your old family friend, Brent Scowcroft, who has some differences with the policies here, says one of the things that he's worried about is that there's no tradition of democracy there, that people will just seize power wherever they can. It seems to a lot of people that that is playing out in the south, especially where the Shia are saying, look, we're going to run things here, we'd like to have an Islamic government. Isn't that a serious concern?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, we just started. The country isn't secure yet. I mean, the first things that we're worried about is making sure that the militia units of the old Fedayeen Saddam aren't out killing people. So our troops are working with coalition forces to make the country more secure...I was pleased to see that the Doctors Without Borders organization said that they went into Iraq and found no grave humanitarian crisis. In other words, the food is getting to the people, medicines are getting to the people. They did say there is a shortage of personnel, professionally -- not a shortage of medicine, but a shortage of professionals necessary to deliver the aid, and we'll help the Iraqi people address that problem.
Bush goes on to say in the interview that “The good news is, is that the hospitals are now up and running, they've got enough medical supplies to take care of the people that need help.”
So no humanitarian crisis according to a group who doesn’t assess humanitarian crises, and the state of medical care is just great. Yeah right. Here’s what Doctors Without Borders actually said
MSF's Recent Medical Surveys:
- Baghdad
At Al Yarmouk Hospital, which was bombed 10 days ago, only the emergency department is operating. Thursday was its first day back at work. There is a serious lack of nursing staff and a very limited supply of essential drugs. Much of their medical equipment was also looted. The management of the hospital is finding it difficult to cope. Only one generator out of three is running, which means that the kidney dialysis machine is only working for part of the day. The staff are having to turn patients away to other hospitals.
Karameh Hospital on the west bank of the river has around 450 beds and is continuing to work effectively. The staff found ways to guard the hospital and there was no looting. There were not many material needs here but there was concern about insecurity in the wider city that was discouraging staff from traveling and returning to work.
The Pediatric Hospital had very limited treatment capacity.
MSF's surgical team has continued to work in the Zafarinia hospital, where they have been helping with routine operations: ovarian cyst, appendicitis, limb injuries.
MSF delivered drug supplies, particularly painkillers, and some surgical materials to these hospitals where there were clear needs and requests.
The MSF Medical Coordinator in Baghdad summarized the overall problems as follows.
1) Many patients - possibly thousands - were discharged to their homes after initial surgery due to insecurity. Some will need secondary surgery. It is currently impossible to get an overview of the remaining surgical needs.
2) Some patients with chronic medical diseases, such as kidney disease (no dialysis machines working well), diabetes (no refrigerators to store insulin), cardiovascular diseases (no drugs, no medical attention, no pharmacies open) will have serious problems.
3) There are 34 hospitals in Baghdad, with about a half of them are believed to be functioning. The few we have seen are generally under great stress with organization and management often limited. Patients are being taken care of but the quality of care may be far from optimal. Moreover, most people do not know which hospitals are functioning or where to go if they are ill.
4) Many hospitals were looted but the ones now more or less open seem to have enough medical supplies, apart from specific items such as anesthesia drugs and external fixations. There is still insufficient information about stocks. [Note that Bush seems to have fixated on this statement ignoring the fact that this is only a fraction of the hospitals in a city of 5 million people]
The report goes on to give the status of hospitals around the country some of which were operating quite well and some still suffering from lack of personnel and supplies. But clearly Bush was speaking out of turn (and ignorance) to present such a rosy picture. And this is still only to speak of emergency health care. Bush claimed no humanitarian crisis based on MSF reporting, which is simply not true.
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