4Basra

We raised €825 raised as a result of my article in The Tablet - sincere thanks to everyone for their kind support and generous donations.

All monies will be put towards the next consignment of badly needed medicines and supplies, which we will endeavour to send as soon as it is safe to do so.

In light of various media reports of ongoing fighting in Basra in recent weeks, the most recent report from the hospital we’re supporting is worrying to say the least.

There were curfews in Basra and no one was allowed to leave their homes late last week.

The hospital had a severe shortage of food and water and medicines, but no one there was allowed to venture outside either.

There were no ambulances or paramedics on duty in the city to collect the injured, who were lying in the streets and crying.

Heavy fighting was continuing and Basra airport and the streets around the city were all closed off.

More news as soon as I have it.

A couple of things to mention before I post the article that the Big Issue recently featured on Basra.

Last year we raised a total of €3,100 (£2,345 at today’s exchange rate), so a big thank you to everyone who supported us and made a donation.

Secondly, I’ll be writing a report on the situation in Basra for The Tablet, which will be published next month, to coincide with the 5th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.

We hope to generate further publicity during the month.

Finally, below is the piece that featured in the Big Issue, kindly written by journalist Rebecca Thomson. (The headline is by me, as I haven’t seen the actual published article.)

Depleted uranium: Iraq’s Toxic Legacy

By Rebecca Thomson

Depleted uranium weapons have been the subject of controversy for years, but the effects they are currently having in Iraq make the case for banning them more pronounced than ever.
 
Professor Siegwart Horst Günther, a German doctor who worked in Iraq for four decades, made a recent return to the country and found shockingly high rates of cancer and birth defects among children.
 
He, along with film-maker Frieder Wagner, and scientists Ted Weymann and Professor Asaf Durakovic, made a film documenting the appalling effects depleted uranium has on people living in war-torn countries, as well as the soldiers who fought in them.
 
The substance has a half life of 4.5 billion years making the countries involved permanently contaminated. It is a by-product of the nuclear fuel making process and is difficult and expensive to store, but once made into weapons, its devastating effects give its protagonists a huge military advantage.
 
Western governments oscillate between pretending they don’t use it, and saying radiation levels coming from the weapons are too low to have adverse health effects.

But doctors in Basra report that ten times as many patients are dying of cancer related diseases than before the 1991 Gulf War, while the number of babies born with birth defects is 20 times higher.
 
Thousands of soldiers who fought in the Gulf War, in the Balkans conflict, and in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, have suffered symptoms synonymous with uranium poisoning, but US and UK governments refuse to acknowledge that their weapons caused these illnesses.
 
The UN has raised questions about the legality and safety of depleted uranium, while the European Parliament has repeatedly passed resolutions requesting an immediate moratorium on further use of the weapons, which have been blocked by the UK and France.

The American government and its allies continue to risk the lives of their own military personnel, causing devastating health problems for the countries they attack, despite knowing about the risks associated with the weapons.
 
Fighting the effects of depleted uranium is increasingly difficult for doctors and nurses in Iraq. The enormous difficulties they face were shown in a recent Medact report, which highlighted severe shortcomings in the reconstruction of Iraq’s health system.
 
The occupying powers are failing to protect doctors and nurses, the report says, meaning many of those who have escaped being killed or kidnapped are leaving the country.
 
In addition, 40 per cent of the 900 essential drugs are out of stock in hospitals – especially higher-cost medicines such as those for childhood leukaemia.
 
Against this catastrophic backdrop, NGOs and charities are working hard to provide hope to the people that remain in Iraq. The Aladin’s Magic Lamp Project is one of them, raising £395,000 a year to run a children’s and maternity hospital in Basra.
 
The people in Iraq are facing an increasingly desperate situation and the importance of projects like this one is becoming clearer as the effects of the humanitarian disaster in the country continue to grow.
 

Merry Christmas from 4Basra and thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported us this year.

In the past six weeks or so, with the help of Nicholas Wood, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, the guys at Media Lens, and thanks to donations from a number of doctors in the UK and Ireland and a number of my own contacts, we have raised €1,600. This brings the total raised in 2007 to €2,700.

Although this is a tiny fraction of the total amount of money needed to buy medicines and supplies every year for the hospital (about €250,000), every little is very much appreciated and badly needed.

We hope to add to this in the New Year with further efforts.

Doctors in Basra still face danger every day

If you saw BBC’s Panorama report from Basra earlier this month, or read recent reports in The Guardian or The Sunday Times, you’ll know that doctors in Basra still face incredibly difficult and dangerous conditions.

In the past six months, 48 women have been killed in the city and doctors are kidnapped for ransoms of up to US$20,000 at a time.

This is still a city living in fear, where the future is uncertain and doctors and nurses face unspeakable dangers and unimaginable risks every day.

Spare a thought for them during this time.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Please click here! http://www.irishwhiskeynotes.com/2007/11/help-good-cause-win-case-of-irish.html

Thanks to David at Irish Whiskey Notes.

And thanks to Stephen Teeling and David Horgan at Cooley Whiskey for your kind donation.

I’m also very grateful to a number of people in the UK who are helping me as we try to gather some further support.

I should also thank Terence at the Irish Medical Times, for publishing my letter,

Damien Mulley for publishing my guest post, and Senator David Norris for his kind donation.

More details soon.

For most Irish doctors and nurses, the daily battle to save lives doesn’t begin until they reach their workplace.

In the southern Iraqi city of Basra however - about 600km south of the capital Baghdad - it’s a battle just to get to work safely through the dusty, rubbish-strewn and war-torn streets without being kidnapped or murdered.

Nearly 150 doctors there went on strike earlier this year in July to protest against the assassinations, kidnappings, threats and blackmail they face, and to demand that the government protect them and their families.

According to the Basra Doctors’ Association, 12 doctors in Basra have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One was a female gynaecologist who was murdered on her way to work one morning. Another was kidnapped, his body later found cut into pieces in a rubbish dump on the outskirts of the city.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s File on 4, sources in Basra say that a Shia Taleban “mafia” enforce a culture of fear and have a stranglehold on the city now that British forces have retreated to Basra airport. Having infiltrated the police force, many hospitals and the Basra Provincial Council, they rule with a deadly iron fist.

Educated people, such as doctors and nurses are especially in danger. Young girls are scared to go to school or university. According to another source at one of the city’s hospitals, 50 bodies arrive at the hospital’s morgue every day.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the city, an American USAID effort is spending millions of dollars, building a brand new children’s hospital. However, while it has been on-schedule and on-budget so far, the project might run into problems when doctors, nurses, surgeons and stocks of supplies and medicines need to be found to run it.

Faced with threats of kidnapping and murder, up to 75 per cent of Iraq’s doctors, pharmacists and nurses have left their hospitals, universities and clinics according to the Iraqi Medical Association.

In the only hospital with the means to treat serious conditions such as Leukaemia, when it can get the medicines, a third of the patients in one ward have to lie on the floor because there aren’t enough beds. Children seeking relief from illness arrive only to discover their suffering will be prolonged in uncomfortable conditions.

Hospitals from other towns and cities in southern Iraq continue to send their patients there because they know the hospital has access to medicines such as Pentostam, which is used to treat leishmaniasis, which is caused by the sandfly parasite.

Despite being surrounded by water, cases of cholera, dysentery and typhoid persist because many of those living in Basra do not have access to clean water. There are billions of barrels of oil lying under the sands of southern Iraq, but those that have not been able to leave have to queue for hours for petrol for their cars or generators. Electricity is also a rare luxury throughout the city.

News about the plight of the Iraqi people has edged out of the Irish media spotlight. Our politicians rarely mention the subject and people have grown immune to the bombings that frequently make the news headlines.

Concern for ordinary Iraqis was not at the top of the conference’s agenda when Labour Foreign Affairs spokesman Michael D. Higgins and Green Party Senator Dan Boyle spoke at a conference of the Irish Anti-War Movement in Dublin last week.

Instead they preferred to debate tired subjects such as Irish neutrality and US troops being flown via Shannon and ‘media propaganda.’ It’s a pity that the energy and sentiments of the Movement weren’t directed to real action or fundraising to help those who are struggling in the wake of the war.

Despite the horrendous conditions, one tiny charity based in Vienna, Austria has succeeded in refurbishing part of the existing Basra children’s hospital. Dull and dirty wards and corridors are now bright, clean and equipped with modern blood testing and other machines.

By co-operating with other NGOs such as Caritas, Aladin’s Wunderlampe Projekte has been supplying the hospital with medicines and supplies two or three times a year.

4Basra contributed €1,100 earlier this year after writing about the charity and we are now appealing to the Irish medical community to help in whatever way you can, with donations or offers to help with fundraising.

I hope that you will be part of a small group of Irish businesses, politicians and media personalities will also contribute to this effort

All monies raised will be used by the Aladin’s Projekte to pay for a shipment of medicine and supplies which will be sent to Basra. The cost is €150,000 and so far a third of the money has been raised.

With thanks to Donal Bergin at the Irish Medical News.

              .