BASRA, Iraq — Laura Bush's gift to the people of Iraq is rising in a dirt lot across from a sheep market here, hidden behind high concrete walls and towers with armed guards.
Behind the walls, hundreds of Iraqi workers in blue jumpsuits scurry around a construction site filled with rebar, dirt and trailers. The project, funded by the U.S. government and donations raised with the first lady's help, will someday be a hospital equipped to treat pediatric cancer patients.
But today, international health experts and Iraqi doctors say, it's an emblem of the problems with U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq's shattered healthcare system.
Nobody denies that Iraq needs new hospitals, but the experts questioned the priorities of Washington's $1-billion rebuilding plan, which has focused on construction instead of basic needs such as better training for doctors and public healthcare campaigns.
"We have more important priorities to solve our urgent health problems," said Abdulamir Khafaji, the chief pediatrician at Basra's largest hospital, citing the need for additional equipment in his emergency room.
Although reliable statistics are scarce, it does not appear that U.S. spending has markedly improved Iraq's bleak healthcare landscape.
Easily treatable conditions such as diarrhea and respiratory illness account for 70% of deaths among children, according to a 2004 Iraqi Health Ministry study. A third of rural Iraqis skip treatment because it's too costly. The Health Ministry estimates that as many as 25% of Iraq's 18,000 physicians have fled the country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
A U.N. study this year found that a third of the children in southern and central Iraq are malnourished, the same as in 2003. And the American contractor in charge of revamping the healthcare system completed less than half its goals, according to a scathing U.S. audit.
Meanwhile, the number of clinics to be built has been reduced because of security costs and other problems. It is uncertain whether Iraqis will be able to staff and maintain the health centers that are being constructed. The U.S. spent funds on equipment that is now sitting in warehouses and on medications that later disappeared, presumably stolen, according to interviews and federal reports.
