BBC NEWS | Magazine | You don't have to give up the day job

BBC NEWS | Magazine | You don't have to give up the day job: "We've already stated the obvious: that there are great writers and
terrible scribblers in the blogosphere, just as there are in the
mainstream media (or 'MSM' as we're now known), but then it was
obviously worth stating given how often the point gets missed by
commentators in both worlds."

Picture of the old city of Mosul

I found this picture in the Encyclopedia of the Orient.
It show a side of the city facing the Tigris river. I like this picture because the house in the lower right of the image, the one with two floors, looks like the house where I was born. May be it is the very same house.
At the seasons of flood, the lower floor get filled of water. But at summer, it feels nice and cool.

now I am an iraqi girl

Yeahooooooooooooo, now I can say I am an Iraqi girl. I get my Iraqi citizenship before 3 days.
I also went with my father to the shop and bought my present, He bought me a CD, DVD, and cassette player (portable CD MP3 VCD mini component).
Najma helped me to find some songs from the Internet and copied them to a CD, and I looked at the cassette that we have them in home. I found many om-kalthoom's songs, Fayrouze's songs,Abdel7aleem's songs and other singer that every body know them.


I am busy these days with Aya and home work. Najma began her studies :( So she can't spend time with us like before. Yesterday I was alone in the house and I heard a sound of bullets I ran quickly to the window to see if the road closed or not and I found it open. After some minutes Najma's came, she looked bale and she told me that she was too close from the bullets and she saw a man hold a gun pointed it into the policemen, and Najma's friend began to cry when the bullets broke up near from them.
Well, every family in Iraq spend times like this every day. This is what should we pay to America because it gives us the freedom that we need (Note: freedom means do what you want, even it's wrong and should not do. You are free, kill what you want. Steal anybody you want and anything you like) the only think that I studied it in history and discovered that it's right, that he freedom should be something useful. Serve the one AND the community.

hnk

Cardiac Catheterization ..... for my Boss

When sit together, we talk in different subjects, may be the current situation has the biggest portion of our talks, specially the situation of hospitals in Mosul, and the level of health services provided to the population in those days.
We have plenty of problems, as shortage of medicine , of medical appliances, instruments and the most important of all, the shortage of medical evolution.
We try to compensate these difficulties in giving more care to the patients, if we don't able to give them cure, at least give them some sympathy and attention...... It works some time!!.

Today we had a staff meeting at the hospital where I work. The director, told us his story of visiting the Medical City in Baghdad for check up. He has had an attack of myocardial infarction three years ago, but he still found him self capable of giving more, so he continued in his position and worked hard. He have to go to Baghdad every now and then to check his heart. During the last two years, the road to Baghdad was very dangerous, so he postpone his visit as possible, but lately his treating physician insist on him to do cardiac angiography, which only available in Baghdad. He went there on Wednesday. He describe the situation in the most equipped and best hospital in Iraq. He said:

"We arrived Baghdad about 12:30 pm, there is plenty of time till the end of the day, we went directly to the Medical City as I have an appointment for Cardiac Angiography on Thursday. At the entrance there were a checkpoint searching every body, "which I think it was necessary to avoid security problems" the n take the elevator to the eleventh floor where the ward for cardiac catheterizatin located. I present my self as Dr. N.A., the y check the list, OK your name is on the list, go home now and come after 6:00 pm. You have nothing to do here, why lose your time. Is there any sort of preparation or investigation necessary before the Catheterizatin ?. Dr NA asked. Not at all!!, the man (probably a male nurse) answered.

I went to the Hotel take a light dinner. Exactly at 6:00 pm, I went to the ward again. This time there were no body at the reception desk. Started looking for some body, I found the nurse on charge watching the Television in a side room. I presented my self, as having an appointment for Cardiac Catheterization tomorrow morning. She point to a room "your bed is in this room" she said. "are there any medication I have to take tonight?" I asked. "As you like, that's up to you!!" she answered. I know very well what to do, (this is the third time I have to do Catheterization.)

Next morning, a nurse came and checked the names, a resident doctor, passed quickly and checked the names again. But no body did any sort of examination, no ECG, no even a blood pressure check before such an important procedure!!.

4 hours after the catheterization, they told me :"you can go home now".... Is there any medication I have to take?"... The same answer.."It is up to you"

This happened in the best hospital in Iraq, with a physician and a director of a hospital.
I wonder what will happen with an ordinary simple citizen??

What I have to say is that, this could not be happened in any small hospital in Mosul, even with the most simple surgical intervention. It did not happen even during the sanction, where there were no facilities for sophisticated investigations.