IRAQ: MEDICAL STAFF AT BAGHDAD'S YARMOUK HOSPITAL GO ON STRIKE FOLLOWING ALLEGED ABUSE BY IRAQI SOLDIERS
Record ID:
342221
IRAQ: MEDICAL STAFF AT BAGHDAD'S YARMOUK HOSPITAL GO ON STRIKE FOLLOWING ALLEGED ABUSE BY IRAQI SOLDIERS
- Title: IRAQ: MEDICAL STAFF AT BAGHDAD'S YARMOUK HOSPITAL GO ON STRIKE FOLLOWING ALLEGED ABUSE BY IRAQI SOLDIERS
- Date: 19th July 2005
- Summary: (MER1) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (JULY 19, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. EXTERIOR OF YARMOUK HOSPITAL 0.05 2. SCU: SIGN READING "YARMOUK TEACHING HOSPITAL" 0.10 3. WS: DOCTORS OF HOSPITAL GATHERING OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNAL MEDICINE 0.16 4. DOCTORS GATHERING IN YARD OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNAL MEDICINE (2 SHOTS) 0.26 5. CU: SIGN OUTSIDE HOSPITAL READING "We apologize for not receiving patients due to assault on doctors inside hospital by some members of security forces." 0.32 6. CHILD MOHAMMED HASHIM WITH BULLET WOUND IN HIS LEG LYING ON STRETCHER INSIDE AMBULANCE 0.37 7. SCU: MOHAMMED HASHIM ON STRETCHER INSIDE AMBULANCE 0.42 8. AMBULANCE LEAVING 0.51 9. SCU: DOCTORS GATHERING OUTSIDE 0.56 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) DR HAIDER MUHSIN RASHID, INTERNAL MEDICINE RESIDENT AT YARMOUK HOSPITAL, SAYING: "I do not know. I entered (the ward) and saw a member, let us say someone irresponsible, a soldier or the like pointing a gun at one of our doctors who is an internal medicine board student as he was sitting, telling him that he would blow up his abdomen. He insulted him and uttered dirty words, which I cannot repeat. He then went outside and came in with a large group with him shouting 'get out of the way, get out' and then he pointed the gun at his (the doctor) head and he said 'I will blow up your head' and he (the soldier) started to utter the same abuse." 1.30 11. DOCTORS HOLDING PAPER LISTING THEIR DEMANDS 1.36 12. CU: LIST OF DEMANDS 1.41 13. (SOUNDBITE)(Arabic) DR RIYADH SALMAN, CHIEF OF RESIDENT DOCTORS, SAYING: "The doctors here are not on strike, but in fact they are afraid for their lives and for the people coming here from security events (attacks). All we want from our government is for them to hear our voice and provide protection for the doctor as soon as possible to enable the doctor to do his work in a normal way and treat patients. This is what the doctors want." 2.05 14. EMPTY EMERGENCY WARD 2.10 15. VARIOUS OF EMPTY BED IN EMERGENCY WARD (2 SHOTS) 2.20 16. DOCTORS TENDING TO PATIENT IN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT 2.26 17. CU: MONITOR 2.30 18. SCU: PATIENT 2.35 19. ANOTHER PATIENT LAYING ON BED 2.40 20. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PATIENT AMER MANSOUR RADHI, SAYING: "To him who abused the doctor... with all my respect the doctor has suffered a lot to get the (medical) certificate and then a policemen came and abused him, it cannot be and the government should help him." 3.01 21. WS: PATIENTS SITTING ON BEDS INSIDE HOSPITAL WARD 3.06 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 3rd August 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BAGHDAD, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVADF0BNI2QHEIBIIP1LSJFG5XQ7
- Story Text: Doctors at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital strike
following alleged abuse by Iraqi soldiers.
Medical staff at Yarmouk Hospital, Iraq's second
largest hospital stopped work on Tuesday (July 19) to
protest at what they say is physical abuse by Iraqi
soldiers.
All was quiet outside the 1000-bed hospital which is
usually packed with vicitms of the violence that rocks
baghdad on a daily basis.
A notice outside the hospital explained that the
hospital would not receive patients to protest an assault
by a member of the Iraqi security forces on one of the
doctors at the hospital. The hospital's intensive care
units, however, remained open and were treating patients.
Wearing their white jackets, doctors of the internal
medicine ward gathered in the yard of the hospital,
declaring a sit-in starting from 0900 a.m. (0500 GMT) on
Tuesday and demanding the implementation of a government
ban on soldiers carrying weapons inside hospital emergency
rooms. Another of their demands is a request that the
government provide protection for doctors whilst at work.
Staff at Yarmouk hospital said they will not go back to
work until their demands have been met.
A child with a bullet wound to his right leg was denied
entry to the hospital but was given first aid inside an
ambulance before being refered to another hospital for
further treatment.
A doctor at the hospital said that agitated Iraqi
soldier, who came to the hospital to recover the bodies of
two of his colleagues who were killed in an attack
yesterday pointed a gun to the head of one of the doctors,
threatening to kill him.
"I do not know. I entered (the ward) and saw a member,
let us say someone irresponsible, a soldier or the like
pointing a gun at one of our doctors who is an internal
medicine board student as he was sitting, telling him that
he would blow up his abdomen," said doctor Haider Mohsin
Rashid, an internal medicine resident.
"He insulted him and uttered dirty words, which I
cannot reapet. He then went outside and came in with a
large group with him shouting 'get out of the way, get out'
and then he pointed the gun at his (the doctor) head and he
said 'I will blow up your head' and he (the soldier)
started to utter the same abuse," added Dr Rashid.
It's not clear what the soldiers were angry about, but
such tensions now poison the relationship between Iraq's
security forces and doctors.
Violent scuffles between Iraqi soldiers and doctors
are an occupational hazard in Iraq, the emergency-room
physicians say. The hospitals can contain a combustible
mix. Iraqi soldiers and police are the targets of near
daily attacks and bombings. They have watched hundreds of
their colleagues die.
Doctors at the hospital say that this incident was not
the first. Last March an Iraqi soldier dragged one of the
hospital's doctors outside, threw him to the ground, shot
him with his rifle and then ordered other soldiers to beat
the doctor.
One doctor at the hospital explained that doctors were
carrying out this action becaus they are afraid for their
lives.
"Doctors here are not on strike, but in fact they are
afraid for their lives and for the people coming from
security events (attacks). All we want from our government
is for them to hear our voice and provide protection for
the doctor as soon as possible to enable the doctor do his
work in a normal way and treat patients. This is what the
doctors want," said Riyadh Salman chief of resident doctors
of the hospital In-patients criticised the conduct by Iraqi security
forces, saying the doctors are doing their best to ease the
pain of the patients, calling on the government to protect
the doctors.
"To him who abused the doctor... with all my respect
the doctors has suffered a lot to get the certificate and
then a policemen came and abuse him, it cannot be and the
government should help him," said patient Amer Mansour.
Overworked doctors and nurses in Iraq's poorly
equipped hospitals routinely deal with mass casualties that
would overwhelm far bigger and better-equipped facilities.
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