‘I numb myself’: Hospital fire deepens Iraq’s pandemic crisis
DOCTORS FIGHT TO STEM THIRD WAVE AS MEDICINES AND OXYGEN FALL SHORT
No beds, medicines running low and hospital wards prone to fire — Iraq’s doctors say they are losing the battle against Covid-19. And they say that was true even before a devastating blaze killed scores of people in a Covid-19 isolation unit this week.
Infections in Iraq have surged to record highs in a third wave spurred by the more aggressive delta variant, and longneglected hospitals suffering the effects of decades of war are overwhelmed with severely ill patients, many of them young.
Doctors are going online to plead for donations of medicine and bottled oxygen, and relatives are taking to social media to find hospital beds for their stricken loved ones.
“Every morning, it’s the same chaos repeated, wards overwhelmed with patients,” said Sarmed Ahmad, a doctor at Baghdad’s Al Kindi Hospital.
Crumbling infrastructure
Widespread distrust of Iraq’s crumbling health care system only intensified after Monday’s blaze at Al Hussain Teaching Hospital in the city of Nasiriyah, the country’s second catastrophic fire at a coronavirus ward in less than three months.
“After both infernos, when I’m on call I numb myself because every hospital in Iraq is at high risk of burning down every single moment. So what can I do? I can’t quit my job. I can’t avoid the call,” said Hadeel Al Ashabl, a doctor in Baghdad who works in a new isolation ward similar to the one in Nasiriyah. “Patients are also not willing to be treated inside these hospitals, but it’s also out of their hands.”
Covid death toll hits 17,600
Iraq recorded over 9,600 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday in the highest 24-hour total since the pandemic began. Daily cases have slowly been rising since May. More than 17,600 people have died of the virus.
Inside one major Baghdad emergency room this week, relatives of Covid-19 patients sat on the floor because there were no chairs available.
With hospital space limited, Ahmad calls on Baghdad’s health directorate to advise him where to send patients. “They say, ‘Send five patients to this hospital, another five to this other,’ and so on,” he said.
Paucity of ventilators
Al Shabl said medications and ventilators are running low at her hospital, and 60 per cent of the Covid-19 patients there need the breathing machines.For the first time since the start of the pandemic, children have come to the hospital with severe virus symptoms, said Alya Yass, a pediatrician at Al Numan Teaching Hospital in Baghdad.
Less than 3 per cent of Iraq’s population has been vaccinated, according to a health ministry official. Health workers said they have expressed their concerns to superiors with little results.
Mohammad Jamal, a former doctor at Al Sader Teaching Hospital in Basra, said he confronted a ministry inspection committee and asked: Why haven’t the medications been restocked or fire extinguishers replaced? Where is the fire system?
“They didn’t listen. didn’t see,” he said.
After both infernos, when I’m on call I numb myself because every hospital in Iraq is at high risk of burning down every single moment. What can I do? I can’t quit my job. I can’t avoid the call.”
Hadeel Al Ashabl | Doctor in a Baghdad Covid-19 ward