In Baghdad's Anarchy, the Insane Went Free

[thedrifter]

In Baghdad's Anarchy, the Insane Went Free
By PATRICK E. TYLER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 11 ? The only mental patient left behind at the high security ward of Al Rashad state hospital is a killer named Ali Sabah, a former math and science teacher with jet black hair and dark, searching eyes.

He is off his medications, the door to the ward is wide open and shards of glass lie everywhere as potential weapons. Yet on a recent day he was calm until this reporter made a few notes. "Why is he writing my name down?" he asked.

He stalks the looted corridors inside the 15-foot-high wall that once provided maximum security to restrain 120 patients who were committed for murder and rape while in the throes of mental disorder.

"I hate the world and the world hates me," he replied when asked why he stayed while the others ran. Then he added, "I don't want the monkey to see me and I don't want to see the monkey."

In another part of the hospital, the six women among the patients who were raped by looters are receiving special attention from the nursing staff. Some spend their days curled under blankets, others have ventured out to squat in the light where there are no chairs, but where cigarettes can be smoked. The nurses whisper that one rape victim is pregnant.

For the staff, there is also the sad loss of Hanna Fatah, who had been a patient here for 30 of her 70 years.

"When the marines opened the gates, Hanna wanted to leave," said Sultan A. Sultan, her psychiatrist. She had no ability to judge the danger and while wandering somewhere near the gate, she was killed by a bullet that struck her forehead.

One of the tragedies of the war ? a preventable tragedy in the view of many doctors and nurses ? occurred here. Iraq's only hospital providing long-term care for chronic schizophrenia and other serious disorders, Al Rashad was all but destroyed.

When American marines clashed with Saddam Hussein's irregulars trying to block their advance into Baghdad, the marines came through the gates here and knocked down the walls with their tanks. They set up a command post in the nursing school.

Waves of looters came in with them, staff members said.

One of the oldest health institutions in Iraq, Al Rashad has long been designated a civilian hospital. The director, Amir Abou Heelo, told the Marine commander on April 8 that he was entering a psychiatric facility, staff doctors said in interviews. But the protest did little good.

"I am disappointed," said Dr. Raghad Sursan, a psychiatrist. "I am mad, and if there is a word that is bigger than mad, I am that, because the marines were there and could have done something to stop it."

The looters stripped everything once, then waited a week for repairs to be made to doors and windows and came back and stripped the place again, they said.

Of the more than 1,400 Iraqis institutionalized here at the beginning of the year, 300 remain. The staff has been able to cope only because the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, having adopted this facility three years ago, raced emergency food and medical supplies here as Baghdad was falling.

The complaint of the Iraqi psychiatric staff is that the marines stood by as looters carried away every bed, basin, cooker, air-conditioner, piece of furniture or thing of value.

The marines broke the door down on the maximum security wing, and in no time the patients were gone, untethered from the antipsychotic drugs that stabilized many of them.

One doctor said he was told by a Marine officer that the officer was there to "liberate and then leave."

"This is the Iraqi version of de-institutionalization," said Dr. Sursan, alluding to the mass de-institutionalization of mental patients in the United States during the 1970's.

The Red Cross spent $1.5 million over the last three years bringing the facility up almost to Western standards for compassionate care to the mentally ill, said Olaf Rosset, the Norwegian physician who has overseen the project from the beginning. Ghastly and putrid wards were modernized, open sewers were closed, kitchens were rebuilt and, Dr. Rosset said, the warehousing of patients gave way to a much more humane approach of outdoor activities, picnics, poetry and art contests.
Every day for three weeks after the marines pulled out, Dr. Rosset asked United States military commanders to send troops to provide security. Looters still were roaming the grounds, and a Shiite religious organization based at nearby mosques moved in to provide some security. But looting continued and the Shiite security men began selling the gasoline from the bulk storage tanks at the hospital.

The Red Cross sent a team out to replace windows and doors, and by April 19, most buildings were sealed once again.

"Then on April 19, it was looted again," Dr. Rosset said, by people who broke in. So he pressed his requests to the Americans to send some kind of protective force.

Last week, help finally arrived. Capt. Stacey Corn of Fort Polk, La., rolled in with a detachment from Troop E, Second Squadron, Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. In what Dr. Rosset described as well-stated diplomatic language, Captain Corn told the Shiite militia, "We are here to release you from your duties and you are now free to assist others."

The American soldiers now guarding the facility are generally aware that disaster struck here. They have heard the complaints.

Lt. Nick Griffiths, a New Yorker who was in charge of the security detail this weekend, said, "We started 24-hour guarding of this facility a few days ago because we had identified it as a trouble spot."

"We know they have had problems with looting, vandalism, threats from people and stealing," Lieutenant Griffiths added, indicating that whatever happened here when the marines came through was not as important to him as the here and now.

"This is a hospital, and so it has a high priority for us," he said.

For some, however, the damage is done. Dr. Rosset said it would take three years to replace what was destroyed here.

Meanwhile, a grim scene unfolds daily in the front office. There, three psychiatrists meet with desperate Iraqis who walk in to plead for help in handling disturbed family members who have returned home after they escaped from here.

Ahmed Shehab stood in front of them on Saturday to say that Samir Hamid, 40, had escaped from the maximum security ward and was threatening to kill his sister, who is Mr. Shehab's wife.

"He is a paranoid schizophrenic and is so dangerous, especially to his sister," Dr. Sultan said. "He thinks that she destroyed him and so he went home to kill her. He has a knife."

The doctors told Mr. Shehab they were powerless to act. There is no government, no law to commit dangerous mental patients, no police force to call for help, and no hospital in which to treat the mentally ill.

Dr. Sultan is worried. He thinks there are quite a few human time bombs out in the community. One is a 60-year-old man who more than 30 years ago killed two of his own small children. One son survived and today is in his 30's, living in Baghdad with his family. For 30 years, the father told his doctor that all he wanted was to escape so he could kill the remaining son.

Now the man is out there somewhere, the doctors say. They have notified the son. It was all they could do.

Sempers,

Roger