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Demoralization is a serious problem among medical workers. Many doctors and nurses fled during the war and have not returned. Those who stayed are overworked and still shell-shocked from their wartime experiences. At Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital, chief surgeon Boghos Boghossian remembers when more than 300 bodies were delivered from the Amiriyah bomb shelter, many charred beyond recognition. There were only 20 burn beds to receive them. Candlelight replaced electricity throughout the hospital, except in the operating theaters, to which all electricity from the generator was diverted. "It was like being thrown back into the Middle Ages," says Boghossian.
In southern cities, where fierce fighting erupted between Shi'ite rebels and the government, healthworkers were caught in the cross fire. Three floors of Karbala's Husaini hospital were destroyed, and blood and bullet holes are still visible on walls and doors. One doctor there tells of walking down a hallway where dead and wounded lined every inch of the floor and of being unable to tell which stray limb belonged to which body. For weeks, dogs feasted on decomposing remains in the courtyard between the wards.
Across Iraq, doctors and officials say they are relying almost entirely on relief aid to keep going. The government has been unable to purchase equipment because the country's funds remain frozen. Supplies stockpiled before the war were lost in the ensuing chaos and civil uprisings.
While the total amount of aid reaching the country is impossible to calibrate, a massive mobilization by UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross is under way. However, the situation for the summer remains grim. Iraqi health officials and Western observers say that without an immediate lifting of sanctions, at least as they affect the country's ability to import food and medicine, tens of thousands of children will die, the victims of a war that, for them, is still being waged.