Embargo Takes Its Toll On Iraq
Doctors from AmeriCares are being told that the effect of sanctions in Iraq has caused an explosion of infectious disease.
The private, non-profit relief organization delivered the first U.S.-approved medical aid Tuesday to the nation, which has suffered from U.N. sanctions since the Persian Gulf War.
A lack of clean water, malnutrition, and a shortage of drugs have created a place where doctors trained in high-tech medicine are faced with complicated, third-world illnesses.
For the well-trained AmeriCares doctors, the lack of supplies for the type of health care required is frustrating.
"It's very difficult for us and for the patients. Most of them die," one doctor at Bagdad's hospital told CBS News Correspondent John Roberts.
Dr. Stephen Winter, an AmeriCares volunteer, toured the hospital Wednesday to access the need for relief supplies. He showed CBS News a patient who suffers from diabetes, a disease that has been widely controllable in the U.S. using standard medical treatments.
"This is a 32-year-old diabetic who had an amputation because of uncontrolled diabetes and vascular disease," Dr. Winter said.
He added that AmeriCares had brought a large supply of insulin to Iraq, which would hopefully curb the problem of treatable diseases getting out of hand.
While AmeriCares' airlifted medicine this week will help ease the need for basics, it won't help people like Mohammhed Faisal. Faisal sold his home and furniture to pay for medicines to pay for his son's brain cancer. But the medicine has stopped working and in Iraq, there's nothing else to try.
Prior to the Persian Gulf War, Iraq had one of the most modern medical systems in the Middle East, if not in the world. Now they have trouble replacing lightbulbs, let alone medicines and medical equipment. The old equipment that they do have is only kept running by cannibalizing other machines for spare parts.
One paralyzed boy has been confined to the hospital for three years because he can't get a portable ventilator. And in the coronary care unit there are no proper heart monitors. Deteriorating neo-natal care is one reason why one in ten Iraqi babies die.
Dr. Winters says sanctions are appropriate because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he worries about the human consequences.
"I think this humanitarian effort is fundamentally important and is above the politics and is clearly important to the world," Dr. Winter said.
AmeriCares received assurances Wednesday from Iraqi's government that they can stage more relief flights. The humanitarian group hopes to at least ease the suffering of Iraqi citizens until the nation complies with U.N. resolutions.