Remedies sought for Iraq's ailing health care
Once the Mideast's best, system is now in critical condition
From Dr. Sanjay Gupta
CNN
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Inadequate supplies and out-dated training have resulted in Iraq's once-vaunted health system transformed into more primitive care.
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CNN's Sanjay Gupta looks at the tough task of rebuilding Iraq's crumbling health-care system.
Iraqis are seeking to improve care for the next generation with U.S. help. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
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(CNN) -- Even before the war began last year, Iraq's health system was in shambles. Doctors were isolated, resources were inadequate and patients went to hospitals to die. The war just made it worse.
Starting essentially from scratch won't be easy, but Americans and Iraqis said they are hoping to revive a health system that 30 years ago was considered the finest in the Middle East.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson returned this week from Iraq, where he evaluated the nation's health care and medical infrastructure. CNN accompanied Thompson on his trip.
"What we're going to do as a department is to collaborate and to cooperate and partnership with the people of Iraq to rebuild that medical system back to what it was in the 1970s," Thompson said.
According to the Iraq Ministry of Health, one in 10 infants in the country will die before they are a year old, a rate officials are trying to cut in half by next year. Of those who do make it, nearly 8 percent die before the age of 5, officials said.
Dr. Salma Hadad, a pediatric oncologist in Iraq, said she believes the joint effort between the United States and Iraq can turn back the clock to the previous level of care.
"I hope they will be rebuilding the health services and our health system like it was before, to give these children the best chance of a cure and survival," Hadad said.
Currently, the situation needs vast improvement. For example, basic antibiotics that cost just pennies in the United States are in short supply in Iraq, putting the population at risk of dying from routine infections.
About three in 1,000 mothers die after childbirth, often from infections that would be preventable in developed countries, according to the health ministry.
Doctors have been using textbooks that are decades old and giving patients the associated obsolete care. Some hospitals even go dark at night because supplies as basic as light bulbs are nowhere to be found.
The health system's problems are blamed in part on embargoes placed on the country. Some say three wars in 20 years couldn't help but decimate the care, but others point the finger at a cruel dictator.
"The [recent] war complicated things, but it was much more the neglect of Saddam Hussein for 15 years that really ruined the medical infrastructure in Iraq," Thompson said.
At Al Wiyah Women's Clinic in Baghdad, workers painted over windows in an effort to seal an operating room from contaminants outside. Such disrepair is just one of the problems the country's hospitals are facing, doctors said.
"The sewer system wasn't working, the ventilation system wasn't working," Hadad said, describing conditions at Al-Monsour Hospital, Baghdad's largest hospital.
"Also, there were many days the hospital stayed without water and the patients had no water. ... Sometimes the families brought water from their homes."
Such difficulties are routine in the capital of Iraq, but officials say move farther outside of Baghdad and the situation is even worse.
Health officials are trying to cut the infant mortality rate in half in the next year and institute other changes to improve children's health care.
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Iraq spent an estimated $20 million on health care in 2002 -- or about 68 cents a person, the Iraq Ministry of Health said. In comparison, the U.S. government spends more than $4,000 per person, federal statistics show. This year, the Iraqi expenditure will be close to $900 million, up to about $40 per person, the Iraqi ministry said. Most of the money is expected to come from oil revenues.
The newly appointed Iraqi minister of health said he wants even more funding.
"It could take as much as $1 billion as a start, but I would wish in 2004 to have upward of $2 billion," Dr. Khudair Abbas said.
Today, the U.N. sanctions are over, and the coalition authorities say that Iraq's 240 hospitals are in better shape than they were last year. They are all up and running, and both doctors and nurses are being paid -- up to $400 a month for some doctors.
Thompson said he believes Iraq, with the help of the United States, has the potential to turn around its health care and return to its past standards of excellence.
"People of all walks of life, of all ethnic groups and all religions recognize the importance of good health," he said. "And we have, as a country, the greatest medical system that's ever been developed, and if we would export that, I think it would stand us in good stead all over the world."
