Today a couple of soldiers told me about one of their many visits to the hospital in Kirkuk. They didn’t exactly describe things as I am here, and they saw this stuff over several visits, but for the ease of telling I’m going to write it as one visit. All the facts and info came from the soldiers. I just added the narrative.
The soldiers took an Iraqi to the hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound. When they first pulled up to the hospital, they saw bloody bandages and dressings scattered around the outside. They saw a bunch of needles lying on the ground. The hospital is run down, dirty and trashy, inside and outside, and has a terrible smell.
Once inside, they saw more bloody bandages on the floor in the hallway and rooms. They laid their patient on a gurney made of plywood. The top was dirty and had fresh blood on it from another patient. The patient lay bleeding there quite a while with no medical personnel paying attention to him, but with his family standing around him, wailing and crying and adding to the chaos. The people standing around him were smoking, and the patient was having trouble breathing, but his family continued to smoke around him.
They saw a dead young girl lying on the blood stained cement floor in the hallway. No one paid much attention to her, either. Locals bring in blankets for their relatives, as the hospital has none. The locals also tear up sheets to serve as bandages, again, because of shortages.
They saw a dead patient be lifted from a bed and carted off to lie in the hallway. The bed was soaked with blood. A new patient was put on the blood soaked bed.
They took a recently arrived lieutenant with them, and he emerged white faced and shaken. The soldiers wondered what rural hospitals are like, if a city hospital had these conditions.
1 comment:
That is pretty darn gross, that's for sure. I dislike hospitals to begin with so the only reason I'd head to one there was if I was already dead. I'd learn the arts of self-surgery...lol.
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