Iraqi Hospitals Face Crises After Looting

B A G H D A D, Iraq, April 19 -- Before the war, Iraq had a well-regarded medical infrastructure — then came the looters.

At Iraq's only psychiatric hospital, Baghdad's Al-Rashad Compound for the Insane, hundreds of patients remained unaccounted for earlier this week after looters burst in and stripped what little there was of value from the hospital and the patients.

"They broke doors, they come inside, and then they attacked us," a male patient said.

Almost No Supplies

At the Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad, the sick and wounded keep arriving, but there's little the doctors can do for them.

The looters took everything — bed pans, blood-pressure monitors and stethoscopes. Even the air conditioners in the emergency room were ripped from the wall.

"The wards are out of order because of broken glass, broken windows, and there's no electricity and no water supply," a nurse said.

Dr. Rasha Hatim, the hospital's director, said the bed linens and other items are dirty, and there was no way to clean them.

"This is not the ordinary state of our hospital," he said.

They did save a few syringes and medicines, and an asthmatic was able to get a shot so he could breathe again. The X-ray machine works, so they could help a boy with a broken arm.

But there was no way to treat a victim with a badly infected shrapnel wound, not even a thermometer to take his temperature.

With hardly any supplies, most of the 600 beds in the hospital, one of the largest in Baghdad, were empty. The staff was able to relocate a few patients to other hospitals, but simply had to send most home.

One wing of the hospital took a direct hit during the war. So did the morgue. There was nowhere to put bodies, so Hatim had to improvise.

"We tried to bury them here," he said.

He also posted a list. One man showed up looking for his brother, but did not find his name. Before leaving for another hospital, the man said, "Look what the Americans have done to us."

Americans did show up in force Tuesday under Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, with a new priority — to discourage looters, "to let them know we're here and to leave the hospital alone," Blount said.