In March 2002, I remember sitting at the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) office in Halifax and crying like a baby. I cried so much that I could not compose any reasonable sentence. I remember the woman with the British accent patting my shoulder and quietly reassuring me, as though words would melt away the tears and frustration.
Today, it was a different office and a different hand, but my tears were the same. There is nothing more frustrating than total rejection: No way, no how was I allowed to walk into a hospital in Sadr City. The man was one of Moqtada Sadr's representatives, and oversaw all public works in the area. After the director of the hospital rejected me as a volunteer in our 25-second encounter, this man was my best hope. But he wouldn't intercede, nor speak on my behalf. I begged him to reconsider, but he wouldn't - he said he couldn't on account of the rules.
"The situation in our hospitals is fine. Everything is OK, and we are quite happily continuing business as usual." They were lies. The Sadr City hospital I had tried to go to (Al-Chawaadir) almost never has electricity, is out of almost all medications, has no water supply or working sewage drains, and has apparently epidemic cases of Hepatitis E, typhoid, cholera and the like. Doctors regularly leave or fail to report to duty because their lives are threatened by bereaved family members. People who were once hospital technicians are now performing complex surgeries alone. That everything was OK was a lie, and so I started to cry.
I was devastated by my encounter with the MSF office, in which I was told that I could in no way help. However, I eventually managed to pick myself up and go on. After I left Sadr's office today, I got into a "Ford" (mini-bus transit system; it was actually a Toyota, but this is the standard name) and made my way to Al-Adhamiya. I sat and spoke to a doctor there, who asked me to come back tomorrow so that we can sort everything out with The Man before I can get down to business there..
I understand that it may not work, but one of these damn hospitals will.. There are about thirty hospitals in Baghdad alone. What are the odds not a one of them will work out?
tarek