Tomorrow (Tuesday) night, at 8:30, HBO will air a documentary titled “Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone.” The film offers an inside look at Al-Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, as seen through the eyes of a doctor. Once an ordinary hospital, Al-Yarmouk has been transformed by insurgency and sectarian strife into a “field hospital in a civil war.” It is the epicenter of hope and despair for thousands of wounded Baghdad civilians and their families. 

Filming inside Al-Yarmouk’s emergency room was too dangerous for an American crew to attempt.  Only an Iraqi ER doctor could do the job.  This is his story.

With the film’s debut on HBO, Dr. Omer Salih Mahdi reveals his identity to the world for the first time. Until now, he has remained anonymous to protect himself and his family. Dr. Mahdi’s face is not revealed in the film and an actor has recorded his words.

Given permission by hospital authorities to use a hand-held camera inside the emergency room, Dr. Mahdi reveals some of the horrific injuries sustained by Iraqi men, women and children, and exposes the substandard conditions, low morale and danger that its doctors and nurses endure on a daily basis.

Like the American GIs in HBO’s acclaimed 2006 documentary "Baghdad ER," many of the people hospitalized in this film are victims of gunfire or improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Here, however, the victims are Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire of the ongoing sectarian violence between Iraqi Shiites and Sunni insurgents.

Life inside the hospital is dangerous: Gunshots frequently ring out inside the ER, and insurgent militia fighters often storm its doors. Doctors are targets, partly because, as one puts it, "We’ll treat anyone: Shiite, Sunni, whoever." But it’s much more treacherous for those working outside. Ambulances are sometimes shot at and ambulance workers have been killed, either mistakenly by Americans or deliberately by extremists.

A warning: parts of the film are horrifying. Among the causalities seen
in the graphic and often heartbreaking footage: a young women who was
engulfed in flames by a car bomb while on her way to buy bread; a
seven-year-old boy injured while playing outside with several friends,
who were killed; a six-year-old boy, wounded by the shrapnel in a bomb
that killed his father and brother–who receives no anesthetic because
supplies have run out; and a bloodied Shia woman being transported in
an ambulance shrieking for the return of Saddam Hussein, because
"nothing could be worse than this."

Here are four clips of the film. The first two are on You Tube, here and here; there are also two more, Quicktime .mov files, viewable here and here.