|
|
WORLD HEALTH DAY: How Much Can Iraq Survive
By Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD, Apr 5, 2007 (IPS) - Iraqis surviving violence are not so sure they can
also survive disease.
"Iraq was known to be the best in healthcare in the region," Dr. Iyad
Muhammad from
Ramadi General Hospital told IPS. "Best doctors, hospitals, nurses and
cheapest medicines.
The situation now is the opposite."
Dr. Muhammad said several doctors have been killed, and many more have
fled the
country. Patients are looking to follow them too, he said, with many
prepared to sell their
property to go abroad for treatment.
"Our situation now has become worse than during the sanctions period (in
the 1990s after
the first Gulf war) when more than one million died and we had very little
medicine and
supplies to treat them."
Iraq's health index has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s,
Joseph Chamie,
former director of the United Nations Population Division and an Iraq
specialist has said.
With only sparse care now available at hospitals, Iraqis in need cross the
border to Syria
and Jordan for treatment. That comes at a price because as foreigners they
can go only to
private hospitals.
Iraqi officials say remedies are on the way. "There have been many
contracts to construct
new hospitals, and our ministry is studying more all over Iraq," Ahmed
Hussein from the
Iraqi Ministry of Health told IPS. "The existing hospitals are old and we
would rather build
new ones."
But widespread corruption has been reported in the Ministry of Health,
which is being led
by politicians with no experience in healthcare. The ministry is
officially led by a member
of the movement of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sectarianism determines who gets the kind of treatment still available.
"You go to a hospital and you find pictures of clerics all over the place,
as if you were in a
shrine," Qassim Brissam, a Shia Iraqi analyst in London told IPS on
telephone. "Clerics are
not doctors, and they should not run hospitals."
Iraqi doctors are painfully aware that growing sectarianism has worsened
the deteriorating
health system.
"I appeared on a documentary concerning Iraqi hospitals, and that was the
biggest mistake
I ever committed," Dr. Rafi Jassim from Baghdad told IPS. "I was lucky to
learn in proper
time that militias were to raid my house that night. Now I am on the run
just like any
fugitive criminal, and my family faces the threat of a terrorist attack
any moment."
A combination of sanctions, war and occupation has brought to Iraq the
world's worst
deterioration in child mortality rate. According to a report 'The State of
the World's
Children' released by UNICEF this year, Iraq's mortality rate for children
under five was 50
per 1000 live births in 1990, and 125 in 2005, an annual average
deterioration of 6.1
percent.
When the U.S.-led invasion was launched in 2003, the Bush administration
pledged to cut
Iraq's child mortality rate by half by 2005. Instead, the rate has
worsened, now to 130 in
2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry figures.
Availability of medical supplies continues to be a critical factor.
"We have been exporters of medicines to Iraq, but we are not able to get
any contract now
to supply the Ministry of Health with medicines," Dr. Hammed al-Nuaimy,
manager of a
large medical supply company told IPS in Baghdad. "This is the case even
though we
always submit the best prices and brands of European origin."
Al-Nuaimy would not say why his company failed to get supply contracts
despite
competitive offers. "I leave it for you and your readers to answer," he
said.
"We are being ignored by our government and by the Americans," 55-year-old
Hammad
Hussein from Fallujah told IPS on a visit to Baghdad. "The promises of a
better life have
just turned out to be ugly death."
Hussein added, "Our hospitals and clinics are paralysed and we do not find
the simplest
treatment, so we always have to buy medicines from the commercial market
which means
we have to sell something like a refrigerator or a TV set to cure a sick
member of the
family."
Sanaa Sulayman, studying for a biology degree at the University of
Baghdad's science
department told IPS that no one seems to look at health in Iraq from the
environmental
perspective.
"The huge amounts of explosives dropped on Iraq including those 'special
weapons' like
radioactive Depleted Uranium and white phosphorous have caused a dramatic
increase in
numbers of patients and severity of diseases," Sulayman said. "It is still
getting worse by
the day and no one seems to care."
A dentist from Fallujah told IPS that most Iraqis have been neglecting
dental care because
they are unable to afford it.
"Dental care is considered a luxury by Iraqis now, and they will not visit
our clinics unless
they have an intolerable toothache," said the doctor. "Most of them would
ask for a tooth
to be pulled rather than filling it because they cannot afford proper
treatment."
The mental health situation is equally grim for Iraqis.
In a study 'Psychological effects of war on Iraqis' the Association of
Iraqi Psychologists
(AIP) reported in January 2007 that of 2,000 people interviewed in all 18
Iraqi provinces,
92 percent said they feared being killed in an explosion.
Sixty percent of those interviewed said the level of violence had caused
them to have panic
attacks, and this prevented them from going out because they feared they
would be the
next victims.
*(Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with
Dahr Jamail, our
U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the
region) (END)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
