Not all well with Iraq’s health care system, needs booster shot

With Iraqis fleeing Islamic State in ever greater numbers, the country’s growing population of internal refugees is straining public facilities already ground down by decades of war, sanctions and red tape. Focused on fighting insurgents, the government is struggling to provide the services that Iraqis took to the streets to demand.

That failure is nowhere more acute than in a healthcare system once seen as one of the best in the Middle East. The World Health Organisation says Iraq’s public health, water, and sanitation systems are collapsing. The situation has become so desperate that thousands of Iraqis forced to flee Anbar province in the west have opted to bypass the government and seek medical care from non-governmental organisations such as one called Dari.

Based in a modest apartment building in Baghdad’s Karrada Mariam neighbourhood, Dari treats about 50 patients a day, mostly children and the elderly. So far this year, Dari has provided more than 15,000 families with food aid and registered another 8,400 patients at its free medical clinic, said its president, Alaa Abdel Sadaa. Abdel Sadaa said his organisation managed resources better than the government, which is plagued by political infighting. Dari relies on volunteers. None of its more than 100 medical professionals are paid, said Abdel Sadaa. It also relies partly on donations and supplies from pharmaceutical firms and food manufacturers.