TV SCOPE: This World, Baghdad: A doctor's story Tuesdays, 9.50pm, BBC2
More than half a million people have been killed since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. And although the numbers of victims killed by coalition forces has decreased, those dying as a result of civil unrest continues to grow. Unfortunately, these facts have ceased to shock a world immune to the carnage served up on a daily basis. Which is why this episode of the BBC news programme This World stood a very real chance of tweaking the consciousness of jaded viewers.
Filmed by an Iraqi doctor who, due to death threats, remained anonymous, it revealed the shocking and bloody conditions of a civilian emergency room in the Al Yarmouk hospital. Located in the most dangerous part of Baghdad, since the invasion this hospital has acted as a military field-hospital with more than 90 per cent of patients treated for bomb and gun shot injuries.
In harrowing scenes victims underwent procedures performed without anaesthetics. Due to dwindling supplies these are reserved for those requiring life- saving surgery in the one functioning theatre. Instead patients undergoing painful procedures were held down by relatives and staff.
One seven-year-old was filmed while chest drains were inserted into his small shattered body, made all the more painful by the fact that no child-size drains were available and adult versions had to be used instead. Due to dwindling blood supplies, victims requiring transfusions surrender their ID cards which are returned only when a relative replaces the blood with their own.
Hospital staff are subjected to violence and death threats because of their willingness to treat victims, whether Sunni or Shiite.
And while many staff live in the hospital where a degree of safety prevails, more have left Iraq unable to cope with the increasingly bloody job. Only one doctor, Dr Ali, a surgeon at the hospital, was prepared to be filmed openly, while all others declined, fearing reprisals.
The most striking aspect was that these Iraqis did not blame US or coalition forces for their fate, with many saying that their withdrawal would make the situation even worse. Although some, including Shiites, called for the return of Saddam, the overwhelming impression was of a people struggling to comprehend how Iraqis could inflict such suffering on their fellow countrymen.
In stark contrast to the sanitised news reports coming out of Iraq, A Doctor's Story allowed the voices of ordinary Iraqi people to be heard.
Review by Marion Kerr, occupational therapist