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Dear friends,
I am in Baghdad escorting pediatrician Lee Huhn and pediatric nurse Angela Rickards, who will be staying here through September to prepare children to travel abroad for heart surgeries
Our arrival yesterday felt surreal. We flew in on a small aircraft reserved for non-governmental organizations. The turboprop plane maintained its altitude of 20,000+ feet until it was directly over the Baghdad airport, and then descended in a stomach-churning corkscrew straight down to the runway, apparently in an effort to avoid missile fire during airport approach.
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My heart is burdened by what I saw during my visit to Baghdad. My daughter Renanah and I went to the Ibn Al Nafis Hospital, one of only two heart centers serving the 25 million people of Iraq. All surgeries there have ground to a halt due to a lack of supplies, including such basic necessities as oxygen. The doctors received us openly, but also expressed some skepticism. Many groups had come to visit, they said, but never returned with any help. Even the American administration, after three visits and lots of picture-taking, had not yet supplied a single item.
