Baghdad doctors struggle with arrival of 100 patients an hour

By PAUL PEACHY

BAGHDAD - Hospitals in Baghdad are in danger of being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of wounded people brought in for treatment, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned.

An average of 100 patients an hour had been taken to the Yarmouk hospital, one of about five in the city that can treat the war's wounded, it said.

Medical staff working round the clock without breaks were also hampered by power cuts and the lack of clean water.

Back-up generators were being used at the hospitals but they needed to be shut down occasionally to prevent them from overheating.

The Red Cross said the situation was particularly worrying in the south of the city where smaller hospitals were unable to cope with an influx of injured people.

A bombed bridge and the danger of heavy fighting meant that the wounded could not be transferred to better-equipped hospitals nearer the city centre.

With many medical staff unable to reach hospitals owing to the bombing, doctors were performing everything from surgery to taking blood, giving injections and ferrying the wounded.

Some of the attacks were so close to the hospitals that the wounded were walking in for treatment.

The ICRC said because emergency admissions had kept coming in, they had not kept figures for those injured.

One doctor, Osama Saleh al-Duleimi, 48, who has witnessed two previous wars, said: "I've been a doctor for 25 years and this is the worst I've seen in terms of number of casualties and fatal wounds."

US officials estimated there had been 2,000 Iraqi military deaths since the attack started on the outskirts of Baghdad.

There were no accurate figures for civilian deaths.

Despite the pressures, the ICRC said yesterday that the hospitals currently had enough dressings and surgical equipment to cope with the numbers coming in.

But it warned that because of problems with the water supply, the hospitals were in urgent need of additional stocks.

Water bags brought in before the attacks started had almost run out and another 30,000 one-litre bags were due to be distributed.

Emergency purification and water treatment works have been used since Thursday inside hospitals within the Medical City complex, north of the city centre on the banks of the Tigris, because of the failure of a nearby water treatment plant.

There has been no sign so far of an epidemic.

A spokeswoman, Antonella Notari, said: "It's extremely hectic; the hospital staff are working round the clock without respite.

"All the reports from Baghdad and Basra suggest the medical personnel are extremely highly skilled and organised.

"It's just stretching their capacity and putting a lot of pressure on them."

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Herald Feature: Iraq war