Ministry of Health
Prior to ORHA involvement, the ministry leadership was comprised of an appointed minister and 23 directors general. Until the people of Iraq elect their own government, the ORHA senior advisor to the ministry will oversee the administration of health care at approximately 1,200 facilities in 18 provinces throughout Iraq.
The senior advisor works closely with the director of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC) for Health, the directors general and the coalition executive council. The executive council includes members from all branches of the U.S. armed forces, USAID and UNICEF.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) is led by Mr. James K. Haveman, Jr. the Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Health, Coalition Provisional Authority, headquartered in Baghdad, Iraq. The MOH is staffed with an assemblage of industry leaders in health care from the US and other International countries representing the civilian and military coalitions supporting the current effort to rebuild the Iraqi health care system. The MOH works closely on a daily basis with its Iraqi MOH counterparts in the MOH Baghdad offices and other Non Governmental and International organizations.
The Office of the Senior Advisor is to liaison and partner with the Iraqi Ministry of Health and others to stabilize basic health care and design and implement a comprehensive health care system that is financially sound and assures quality care that is accessible, affordable and available regardless of ethnic, geographic, gender or religious affiliation; and a health care system that is self sustaining in the future.
Following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, numerous efforts were made to assess, evaluate, validate, prioritize, synchronize and execute critical health care projects and programs leading to the global reestablishment of basic health care across Iraq.
The health care system in Iraq is administrated by the Ministry of Health and supported by the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, now the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The directors general staff positions are designated according to functional areas of responsibilities, including: administration, finance, facilities, legal affairs, kamadia (medical logistics), preventive medicine, public health clinics, popular medical clinic, medical city, technical affairs, engineering, planning, health education, environmental affairs, inspections, Yarmook hospitals, heart transplant institute, heart institute, digestive institute, neurology institute and the plastic surgery institute.
The coalition policy of de-Baathification opened up nine vacancies on the directors general staff. New directors were to be selected through a democratic selection process, with all selections being for an interim period and with no senior Baath party members permitted to serve in the ministry.
The senior advisor initiated and directed democratic selection processes throughout the healthcare network. The purpose of these democratic selection processes was to eliminate corruption, provide transparency and encourage free and open dialogue.
Plans called for all hospital and clinic staffs, including those of military-staffed medical facilities, to hold democratic selections for representatives and representative assistants for all professional groups, to include specialist doctors, resident doctors, nurses, dentists, engineers, technicians and orderlies.
The representatives and representative assistants at each facility are to then form an advisory board charged with the task of selecting a specialist doctor to serve as the hospital director. Only specialist doctors are to be considered. The advisory board will also meet periodically to advise the director. These directors will then select two specialist doctors as nominees for a director general position at the ministry. The senior advisor will make the appointment.
Four resident doctors were selected in the first national democratic selection process on May 20, 2003. Two of these doctors (one Kurd and one Arab) were to serve as ministry advisors; one doctor was to work in the newly formed Complaint Department and one in the new Legal Investigations Department, which is to work with law enforcement and legal officials to follow up on allegations of criminal activities.
All democratically selected representatives will serve the ministry in an advisory capacity.
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