Health care system in Iraq

The state of health in Iraq has changed in the last decades. While 1980 among the best in the Middle East, medical facilities deteriorated and especially the south of Iraq began to suffer from malnutrition and water-borne diseases.

Syring ©Flickr Andres Rueda

In 2005, typhoid, cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis count to common diseases. During the 2003 invasion, approximately 12 percent of hospitals and Iraq’s main public health laboratories were destroyed. Today, sanitary conditions in hospitals are bad and there is need in trained personnel and medications. Per 10,000 population, there are only 15 hospital beds.

Health care system

Iraq developed a free health care system in the 1970s. The country had to import most of itd medication and even personnel. Iraq developed a system of hospitals with advanced medical technology and specialist doctors. Prior to 1990, 97 percent of the population had access to free primary health care.