I am cross posting this from another anesthesia listserv, which is mostly international. It appears to be valid, as the owner of the listserv know the poster personally. It was written by an Iraqi anesthesiologist.


_Dear gentlemen

this not a political forum but i would like to explain the political
implications on anesthesia in Iraq.

1-there is no ICU in all hospitals and dont ask me why a country
loaded with money cant open a ICU in each place.

2-there are no acting insurance company for patients

3-they will not sue a doctor for malpractice or even for mortality
they will kill and we lost doctors for such things.

An aneshesiologist i know working outside Baghdad operated on a young
patient with multiple bullet injuries and he had a thoracotomy and
laparotomy for liver,spleen,stomach ,bowel,kidney and lung
lacerations.
With the few primitive equipment and simple blood bank at his
disposal they saved his life with 20 armed men outside the theater on
standby to kill all the staff if that patient died. It was a gang war
then.
He survived and he was put in the primitave ICU they had.

3 days later the surgeon and anesthesiologist was contacted by the
other gang which shot the victim asking for money as they claim he
was saved by you and we were killing him.

imagine the stress we live in here working among such people,no
wonder most of us go outside to work for simple salaries.

The American dream you say ...it was never fulfilled...everyone
fought it and resisted it it is just refusing to be humans.
And you will say the americans brought this to you....no it was here
from the start but then the security forces were the gangs....only
faces changed....sometimes you even see the same faces.

So definately the patient is a non-touch here as if anything happens
i might get shot. Do they do this in where you work?I doubt they do

__._,_.___