The grim struggle to save lives inside a ragged Baghdad ER
For the emergency-room doctors of Al Kindi, the first nine months of the U.S. occupation have been a dispiriting time. They thought the American rule would bring them more medicines, new equipment and a shot of hope to one of Baghdad's busiest hospitals.
Instead they try to make do as wave after wave of patients — men, women and children swept up in the violence and mayhem — are delivered to their front door.
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This fall, Al Jedda says, U.S. officials did visit one boy who claimed to have been shot in the leg after he made a thumbs-down sign to a soldier. The U.S. military launched an investigation and offered the child's family compensation, Al Jedda says.
But the hospital receives no routine visits from U.S. military officials, he says.
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Ahmed Aziz is a frail farm boy from outside of Baghdad. Wounded in an explosion, he has undergone numerous operations and bone grafts on his damaged legs and feet. but his recovery is still a long way off.
At 9, he has lost his smile.
He has been in the hospital since August.
His father, Hussain Aziz, says a U.S. helicopter fired and detonated a weapons cache that was stored in the fields. The explosion killed Ahmed's 10-year-old brother and severely damaged both of Ahmed's legs, the father says. Ahmed was allowed to temporarily leave the hospital, but he expects to return soon for another operation.
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