WE SURE AS HELL ARE WINNING THIS WAR ARN'T WE
Doctors flee in face of threats by insurgents
By Sabrina Tavernise in BaghdadMay 31, 2005
The letter came to Baghdad's main cardiac hospital late last month. It was handwritten and unsigned, but its message was clear: it threatened the hospital's top doctors and warned them to leave their jobs immediately.
Four of the hospital's top surgeons stopped going to work. So did six senior cardiologists. Some left the country.
It was far from an isolated incident.
The director of another hospital, Dr Abdula Sahab Eunice, was shot dead on May 17 on his way to work, officials said.
In the past year, about 10 per cent of Baghdad's 32,000 registered doctors - Sunnis, Shiites and Christians - have left or been driven from work, according to the Iraqi Medical Association, which licenses practitioners.
The exodus has accelerated in recent months, said Akif Khalil al-Alousi, a pathologist at Kindi Teaching Hospital and a senior member of the association. The vast majority of those fleeing, he said, are the most senior doctors.
"It represents a very good chunk of the doctors," Dr Alousi said. "These are the cream of the cream."
But the threats from insurgents are not the only pressures facing a health-care system once one of the best in the Middle East. Iraq's lawlessness has reached inside the wards, sometimes turning doctor-patient frictions into armed conflicts.
Doctors are easy targets for gangs which specialise in kidnapping because they move around the city to visit patients and often cannot afford large numbers of guards.
Power failures also plague operating and emergency rooms.
Doctors say that after difficult or unsuccessful operations, they sometimes find themselves confronted by armed, angry relatives.
The Interior Ministry has responded to the situation: it simplified gun licensing procedures for doctors, allowing them to get weapons faster than other Iraqis.
Omar al-Kubaisy, who stopped going to the hospital he worked at after he was threatened, kept working at his own clinic - watched over by his 23-year-old son, Ali, who stood guard with a semi-automatic gun.
But two weeks ago, Dr Kubaisy, a cardiologist, left for France
Money appears to be the biggest motivation behind the kidnapping. Dr Alousi estimated that 250 Iraqi doctors had been kidnapped in the past two years.
The New York Times
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Doctors-flee-in-face-of-threats-by-insurgents/2005/05/30/1117305562271.html
Doctors flee in face of threats by insurgents
By Sabrina Tavernise in BaghdadMay 31, 2005
The letter came to Baghdad's main cardiac hospital late last month. It was handwritten and unsigned, but its message was clear: it threatened the hospital's top doctors and warned them to leave their jobs immediately.
Four of the hospital's top surgeons stopped going to work. So did six senior cardiologists. Some left the country.
It was far from an isolated incident.
The director of another hospital, Dr Abdula Sahab Eunice, was shot dead on May 17 on his way to work, officials said.
In the past year, about 10 per cent of Baghdad's 32,000 registered doctors - Sunnis, Shiites and Christians - have left or been driven from work, according to the Iraqi Medical Association, which licenses practitioners.
The exodus has accelerated in recent months, said Akif Khalil al-Alousi, a pathologist at Kindi Teaching Hospital and a senior member of the association. The vast majority of those fleeing, he said, are the most senior doctors.
"It represents a very good chunk of the doctors," Dr Alousi said. "These are the cream of the cream."
But the threats from insurgents are not the only pressures facing a health-care system once one of the best in the Middle East. Iraq's lawlessness has reached inside the wards, sometimes turning doctor-patient frictions into armed conflicts.
Doctors are easy targets for gangs which specialise in kidnapping because they move around the city to visit patients and often cannot afford large numbers of guards.
Power failures also plague operating and emergency rooms.
Doctors say that after difficult or unsuccessful operations, they sometimes find themselves confronted by armed, angry relatives.
The Interior Ministry has responded to the situation: it simplified gun licensing procedures for doctors, allowing them to get weapons faster than other Iraqis.
Omar al-Kubaisy, who stopped going to the hospital he worked at after he was threatened, kept working at his own clinic - watched over by his 23-year-old son, Ali, who stood guard with a semi-automatic gun.
But two weeks ago, Dr Kubaisy, a cardiologist, left for France
Money appears to be the biggest motivation behind the kidnapping. Dr Alousi estimated that 250 Iraqi doctors had been kidnapped in the past two years.
The New York Times
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Doctors-flee-in-face-of-threats-by-insurgents/2005/05/30/1117305562271.html
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