Dr. Ragheed Ryadh, a young resident at Saddam Pediatric, quietly describes having to treat critically ill children despite shortages of proper medications and equipment, such as incubators. Shortages are a fact of life in Iraq under sanctions. He points to the babies struggling for life in the few incubators the hospital does have and calmly states, “there is a decrease in average body weight of newborns due to malnourished mothers, and lack of food, and dysentery.” Thousands of Iraqi children are dying every month from what amounts to simple diarrhea. Dr. Ryadh explains that even if they receive enough food, babies who develop chronic diarrhea are unable to absorb nutrients, and slowly starve to death as a result. Increasing food rations is not enough to stop the dying; safe drinking water must be restored as well.
The malnutrition wards at al-Mansour Pediatric Hospital in Baghdad are much the same as at Saddam Pediatric - gloomy rooms filled with young children struggling to survive their first years of life. Wasting diseases such as marasmus and kwashiorkor, commonly found in countries suffering from famine, are now endemic in Iraq. Despite the best efforts of the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program, 1 out of every 4 Iraqi children remains severely or chronically malnourished, and, according to Dr. Mahmoud Mehi, the hospital director at al-Mansour, waterborne diseases remain a primary cause of malnutrition.
The malnutrition wards at al-Mansour Pediatric Hospital in Baghdad are much the same as at Saddam Pediatric - gloomy rooms filled with young children struggling to survive their first years of life. Wasting diseases such as marasmus and kwashiorkor, commonly found in countries suffering from famine, are now endemic in Iraq. Despite the best efforts of the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program, 1 out of every 4 Iraqi children remains severely or chronically malnourished, and, according to Dr. Mahmoud Mehi, the hospital director at al-Mansour, waterborne diseases remain a primary cause of malnutrition.