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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Private hospitals offer free surgery
BAGHDAD, 27 July 2004 (IRIN) - As Iraq's public health system struggles to provide good medical care, some private hospitals are doing free surgery for patients who need it.
One such patient was a teenage girl with an umbilical hernia, Intesar Kamil, the doctor who operated on her, told IRIN. The hernia was so painful, the girl could hardly walk when her family brought her to the Dijla Hospital in Adamiyah, in western Baghdad, Kamil said.
While a hernia operation is considered to be relatively easy, it costs about US $200 to perform in Iraq and the family couldn't afford it.
"Many people cannot afford even surgery that costs a small amount," Kamil said. "The health situation in Iraq needs a lot of work now, not only to treat diseases, but for poverty too."
Within a day of the surgery, the girl had recovered enough to be sent home. The hospital and Kamil offered the surgery free as part of a project by Health Friends Organisation, an Iraqi NGO, in which 15 out of 68 private hospitals across the country now donate at least one free surgical operation per month to patients in desperate need of care.
"No matter if a private hospital charges less, it is still making sufficient profit anyway. Official hospitals cannot help all patients, for they have financial problem too," she said.
Basic care such as doctor's visits and medicines were subsidised and virtually free under former President Saddam Hussein. Iraq's massive health care system was subsidised by former Oil-for-Food programme revenues, which brought medicine and equipment into the country.
Although the system is still creaking along, surgery can be expensive now, especially at private hospitals, which patients believe can offer better care, doctors say.
And perhaps because basic care is so cheap, every additional cost at the hospital, from a wheelchair to take a patient to the recuperating room after surgery, to the meals the patients eat, is added to the bill.
Health Friends Organisation was started in December 2003 to try to improve the Iraq health situation and repair environmental problems caused by wars and pollution. At first, the agency worked with financing from the founders' pockets, Maher Hassan Alzubady, general manager, told IRIN. Such founders include administrators and doctors at the Ministry of Health.
As the agency grew, workers started looking for outside funding. For example, a Jordanian sheikh contributes $1,700 a month to the group.
Alzubady said it was not hard to convince doctors who run private hospitals to cooperate with the surgery project. "I told [a doctor] how we all should work together, hand in hand," Alzubady said. "I told him, 'I don't want money from you, I want your help in your field, because that can change a lot of people's lives'."
Surgery regularly costs $600 to more than $1,200 - an astronomical sum for people used to paying less than $1 for a visit to the doctor. "Of course medical care can help more than money," Kamil said. "It's what is most needed now."
Owners of private hospitals decide who should receive free surgery after looking at applications. Doctors often follow up with free after-surgery care as well, she added. The hospital charges patients whatever they can afford to pay, especially if they need to stay overnight or longer after the operation.
"In some cases, people who have no money apply to us after trying the official hospital," the doctor said. "The situation there is miserable, but they usually can find no other place to go."
With the sometimes chaotic situation in hospitals following the US-led invasion of Iraq last spring, private doctors now are doing more operations - around 200 per month, Kamil estimated.
It's no problem to help patients who need it, Adnan Hassan, general relations manager of Dijla Hospital, told IRIN. "This is our duty," Hassan said. "We have to continue helping our country and our people."
In the future, Health Friends Organisation plans to branch out in its work. By the end of the year, the agency plans to start checking primary school students for eye diseases. Alzubady also wants to educate citizens about how to treat drinking water.
An estimated 70 percent of all health-related illnesses in Iraq come from untreated water, according to doctors and health agencies. And he wants to start a health coalition so that all health-related aid groups will know what is going on with other agencies and within the government.
The Iraqi NGO, Handicap Friends Organisation, is involved in the project, as is Un Ponte Per, an Italian-based aid agency working in Baghdad, he said.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Children, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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