The USA was part of destroying their health care system, but then, we do
that to our own health care systems.

"Tempest" <tempest@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3EFB7441.A4C67379@hotmail.com...
> Child malnutrition rising in Iraq, experts say
>
> http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl...sp?reg=MIDEAST
>
> Iraq's health care system is operating at less than half capacity and
> since the war, acute malnutrition rates among children under five have
> nearly doubled in some areas, U.N. experts said on Thursday.
>
> The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) chief representative in Iraq,
> Carel de Rooy, said a survey in Baghdad found 7.7 percent of children
> under five suffered acute malnutrition, up from 4 percent before the
> war. This figure was likely mirrored in other urban areas.
>
> ''Based on the fact that there has been a large increase in diarrhea
> morbidity compared to records of last summer in the south-center of the
> country, one can suggest that malnutrition is likely to have
> increased,'' de Rooy told Reuters.
>
> Acute malnutrition, which is believed to have killed hundreds of
> thousands of young Iraqis during 10 years of economic sanctions imposed
> on the government of ousted president Saddam Hussein, means a child is
> wasting away.
>
> Iraq's health care system seriously deteriorated over the last decade of
> Saddam's rule and before the war, one in four children aged under five
> was chronically malnourished and one in eight children likely to die
> before their fifth birthday.
>
> Speaking on the sidelines of an Iraq health briefing by the U.S. Agency
> for International Development, de Rooy attributed many of the current
> health problems to a lethal mix of reduced water supplies and poor water
> quality.
>
> ''The combination of less water and worse quality has increased diarrhea
> morbidity quite substantially and that leads to increased malnutrition.
> One can assume looking at all of this that the situation is worse than
> the prewar one.
>
> Definitely, it is not better,'' he said.
>
> Richard Alderslade, a spokesman on health policy for the World Health
> Organization, said Iraq's health care system was ''extremely fragile''
> and running at between 30-50 percent of its capacity.
>
> ''Access to basic health services are severely compromised for a large
> part of the population,'' he said.
>
> 'HEALTH SITUATION DETERIORATING'
>
> Prewar health care problems had been exacerbated by looting, sabotage,
> chronic insecurity, lack of resources, and confusion over who was in
> charge, he said.
>
> ''The current situation, as always, bears most heavily on the poor and
> on women and children. The public health situation is deteriorating with
> an increase in child morbidity, child diarrhea, poor maternal
> management,'' he said.
>
> In addition, there was a rise in some communicable diseases, and
> significant environmental threats from unexploded ordinance and
> substantial mental trauma among the Iraqis.
>
> Vaccination programs began last week for the country's 4.2 million
> children under five, including the more than 210,000 Iraqi children born
> in the last three months who needed to be vaccinated against a range of
> deadly diseases.
>
> Alderslade reported staffing problems in hospitals where many Iraqi
> health care workers, particularly women, were too afraid to return to
> work because of security problems.
>
> WHO and UNICEF are involved in many projects using USAID funds as well
> as a U.S. company, ABt Associates, which is trying to get the health
> ministry up and running.
>
> ABT Associates also complained of security problems and said its staff
> was asking for armored vehicles. ''This is a real budget-breaker,'' said
> ABt's project manager Jeffrey Gould of the need for armored cars to
> protect their staff.
>
> --
> "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
> we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
> and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
> Teddy Roosevelt