A continuation of sanctions for another sixty days will cost as much in life, justice, and respect for Security Council members that continue the sanctions. During last week, which I spent in Iraq, my fifth annual inspection since the sanctions were imposed, I visited ten hospitals in four governates which have nearly 15 percent of all hospital beds in the country. Conditions are tragic. Lighting is dim, even in operating theaters, for lack of bulbs. Wards are cold.
Pharmacies are nearly empty with only a minor fraction of needed medicines and medical supplies.
Surgery is at levels below 10 percent of the 1989 numbers in all ten hospitals. Occupancy is below 50 percent in all the hospitals, despite the far greater need, because only a few can helped. Death is omnipresent. A young mother weeping in her bed whose infant had just died, an elderly diabetic - his feet bloated with open sores without adequate insulin for years, kwashiorkor and marasmus vitims living only a few days after admission. In the emergency unit in Nasiriya we saw typhoid fever, dehydration, victims wasting because of the lack of simple medicines, a new meningitis admission as we left.