electronicIraq.net

Direct Aid Initiative
Healing the Healer: Dr. Muhammad

Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Jun 20, 2008

Amongst the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who've sought refuge in countries neighboring Iraq, many face acute medical emergencies.  Arranging a triage of the most urgent cases, humanitarian relief workers must also consider crucial questions about a patient's chances for survival.  Last week, Iraqi relief workers here in Amman circulated a desperate plea to help an Iraqi doctor, age 33, whose life is draining away because he cannot afford the medical care he needs. Dr. Muhammad has already survived cancer.  A year after surgery, he is cancer free.  He could continue to live, but a new mass of polyps has developed in his abdominal area, which, though benign, will be fatal if not removed very soon.  "We are playing against time," said one of his colleagues, "and it is so difficult because we know doctors help other people, and when we see that the medical field can't help one it's own doctors, this is a psychological trauma."

In his home yesterday, young Dr. Muhammad, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, asked his colleagues to translate for him because he felt too weak to speak in English, his second language.  He listed for us the symptoms that tell him his situation is rapidly deteriorating: breathlessness, varicose veins, and anemia.  The mass in his abdomen, a desmoid tumor, continues to enlarge, and because the tumor feeds from the same artery that feeds his intestine, the surgery to remove it requires sophisticated skill and equipment not available here in Amman. Thus Dr. Muhammad's life depends on traveling to another country for emergency surgery.

Silently, a dignified, elderly woman, wearing traditional garb, entered the room, nodded to her guests, and gave each of us a small sweet.  Then she sank into a chair next to her son, extending her wrist so that he could take her pulse.  Even this small act was difficult for the young man.  He reassured her that her pulse was ok, then continued speaking to us.  He completed his studies at Baghdad's Mustansariya University, in 2003, but after a few years of practice he left Iraq because of death threats.  He planned to continue studying ENT medicine in Amman.  But, after three months, he was diagnosed with a malignant intestinal mass.

One of the doctors interrupted to add details about his friend's past life.  "You see this mother," he said. "She never learned to read or write, she was a poor widow.  Her husband died of cancer when he was 40 years old and her son, sitting here, was, at that time, only one year of age. Under the sanctions, life was very hard, especially for a poor widow with four small children.  Her family members advised her not to attempt a good education for her children, but she insisted and managed to provide for her children, making sure they went to school, even to University, and now two of her children are doctors, one is a communication specialist, and another is an engineer."   

Her other children, in Baghdad, have raised 13,000 USD to help meet the expenses so desperately needed.  They would sell the family home if they could, to raise more money, but ongoing violence prevents them from entering the area where they formerly lived.

The doctors discussed details about efforts to help the family raise the large sum of money needed to allow their friend a chance to live.  They also considered difficulties in   obtaining a visa for him to travel.  The son asked his mother to fetch a letter from a UK physician who has agreed to perform the surgery.  This surgery would cost $40,000 USD. Questions were raised about whether or not a "pro bono" arrangement could be made, perhaps in the United States.

 Funds would also be needed for ten days in the hospital, a round trip plane ticket, and 3 weeks for recovery.

Glancing at the mother who came to Amman to be at her son's side, a mother yearning to save her child, I thought of countless mothers I'd seen in Iraqi hospitals, under sanctions, cradling limp children while desperate Iraqi doctors looked on, telling us how frustrated they were because, if they had the medicines or the equipment, they could save these children.  The mother's remorseful, tender face reminded me of Michelangelo's statue of the Pieta. Today, World Refugee Day, this mother epitomizes the urgency highlighted in a statement issued by Amnesty International, calling on "the international community and, in particular, those states who participated in the US-led invasion of Iraq, to take real steps to alleviate the suffering of those displaced."

The Iraqi relief workers who wrote seeking immediate help for a doctor whose life could be saved must rely on kindly individuals, people they don't know and whom they may never be able to thank.  Please consult Direct Aid Iraq (www.directaidiraq.org) to learn more about ways to participate in responding to their plea while this doctor's life is in the balance.

Kathy Kelly is co-coordinator for Voice for Creative Nonviolence. 

To learn more about Dr. Muhammad's case, click here.

To contribute to Direct Aid Iraq's efforts to help save Dr. Muhammad's life, click here.