Current Events Health Care in Developing Nations

Corruption, not Terrorism cause of poor Iraqi Medical Care

Zeyad is a Baghdad-based dentist, and the author of the Healing Iraq blog. In his post on The Guardian website, Zeyad describes how corruption is siphoning off medical supplies from physicians who need them for patient care. Even in areas where terrorism is not a problem, the health care is still abismal. Zeyad states:

“The culpability lies mostly on the shoulders of the new Iraqi government. It often blames terrorism for the deterioration of health services, which is true to a certain extent, but Iraqis in safer regions, such as southern governorates, where there is no impediment to reconstruction, continue to suffer from the same problems. I have served a full year at a state clinic in Basra and I have faced the same problems I face today in Baghdad.

The real reason is the cancer that is threatening to deliver the deadly blow to the system: widespread corruption from the lowest janitor in a public clinic up to the minister of health’s office.”