Baghdad Hospitals Improve Slowly

as the
patients themselves. There have been significant gains in the health
care situation thanks to the increasingly stable security environment
and several legislative efforts by the government, many problems with
the health care system remain.

Even though it suffered heavily under the UN sanctions in the 1990's,
Iraq's health care system was still seen as one of the more advanced
in the region. This changed after the American invasion in 2003. The
vast majority of Iraq's wealthy and educated population, including the
doctors and surgeons, were forced to flee the growing violence in
their country. As the violence grew more chaotic during the
occupation, the few doctors who were able to remain in Iraq found
themselves the targets of assassinations by insurgents, their
hospitals the targets of regular car and suicide bombings.

Today in Iraq the security situation has vastly improved, but the
hospitals and medical institutions have been forced to, in the words
of one Iraqi, "start from zero."

The continued shortage of Iraqi doctors and surgeons is a constant
stress on hospital staff. Many of Iraq's educated population has
returned as of late, but "brain drain," either from the violence or
from Iraqis fleeing the country, continues to be a strain. And while
there have been many gains in the treatment of certain infectious
diseases like malaria as well as improvements in infant mortality
rates, Iraqis are also facing new threats from polluted water supplies
to a booming cholera epidemic.

Despite these pressing problems, many Iraqis remain optimistic about
the future of health care in Iraq. In this episode of Alive in
Baghdad, we talk to several Iraqis: doctors, patients and hospital
administrators, each of whom offers us a unique, yet notably hopeful,
perspective on Iraq's health care system.
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