Salaam dear brohters and sisters,
The following article was exported from:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2874108.ece
Medical crisis in Iraq as doctors and nurses flee
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 18 August 2007
The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse.
The research revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching staff. The dossier says Iraq is suffering from an appalling and largely hidden humanitarian crisis, away from the daily bombings, with millions of people in desperate need of help.
Medical staff received a large pay rise in the aftermath of the war with average salaries rising from as little as $25 (£12.50) a month to $ 300. But the lack of security and the ever-present threat of kidnappings and bomb attacks have persuaded an increasing number to seek safety abroad.
The children, as is the case in most conflicts, are among the worst-affected. Child malnutrition rates already as high as 19 per cent before the US led invasion, are now 28 per cent. More than 11 per cent of babies are born underweight, a rate tripled since the war.
Hospitals in the main cities face further security issues. The Yarmuk, in Baghdad, is regularly forced to treat members of the police and army, as well as militias, before seriously injured and ill civilians.
But, while international focus has been on the immediate
The following article was exported from:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2874108.ece
Medical crisis in Iraq as doctors and nurses flee
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 18 August 2007
The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse.
The research revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching staff. The dossier says Iraq is suffering from an appalling and largely hidden humanitarian crisis, away from the daily bombings, with millions of people in desperate need of help.
Medical staff received a large pay rise in the aftermath of the war with average salaries rising from as little as $25 (£12.50) a month to $ 300. But the lack of security and the ever-present threat of kidnappings and bomb attacks have persuaded an increasing number to seek safety abroad.
The children, as is the case in most conflicts, are among the worst-affected. Child malnutrition rates already as high as 19 per cent before the US led invasion, are now 28 per cent. More than 11 per cent of babies are born underweight, a rate tripled since the war.
Hospitals in the main cities face further security issues. The Yarmuk, in Baghdad, is regularly forced to treat members of the police and army, as well as militias, before seriously injured and ill civilians.
But, while international focus has been on the immediate
