Universal Health Care Has Arrived… In Iraq?

Universal Health Care Has Arrived… In Iraq?

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/family/family-health/universal-health-care-has-arrived-iraq?cm_ven=msunited

By Michael Schreiber


Last week the Huffington Post ran a fury-inspiring article about the fact that according to the Iraqi constitution, which was paid for and shepherded by the American taxpayer, Iraqi citizens are guaranteed health care through a single-payer system.

Now, why should such a disclosure inspire fury? Two possible reasons, which probably depend on your political persuasion:

* You are furious because Iraqis see how sensible universal health care is, while we Americans, with our giant, wealthy and intact country, can’t seem to get it together enough to adopt the policy ourselves.

toward helping them get their system up and running. :mad:

Iraq's health care system

While some critics focused on the failure to deliver the PHC system, others questioned the whole U.S. approach. Iraq had developed a centralized free health care system in the 1970s using a hospital based, capital-intensive model of curative care. The country depended on large-scale imports of medicines, medical equipment and even nurses, paid for with oil export income, according to a "Watching Brief" report issued jointly by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2003.

Unlike other poorer countries, which focused on mass health care using primary care practitioners, Iraq developed a Westernized system of sophisticated hospitals with advanced medical procedures, provided by specialist physicians. The UNICEF/WHO report noted that prior to 1990, 97 percent of the urban dwellers and 71 percent of the rural population had access to free primary health care; just 2 percent of hospital beds were privately managed.

http://www.alternet.org/world/46856/health_care_in_iraq_was_better_under_saddam_hussein/



Independent, secular Iraq had the most advanced scientific-cultural order in the Arab world, despite the repressive nature of Saddam Hussein’s police state. There was a system of national health care, universal public education and generous welfare services, combined with unprecedented levels of gender equality.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33836

In 1991, Iraq had 1,800 primary health centres, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF.

As a result of US war and sanctions, a decade later that number had fallen to 929, of which a third require serious rehabilitation, one of the most pressing needs to date. The US-British sponsored sanctions and wars against the Iraqi people have killed more than 2 million Iraqi civilians, a third of them were children under the age of five. Iraq's health care and education systems were deliberately targeted for destruction.

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-hassan011204.htm



Their system was destroyed by genocidal sanctions and invasion.

continuous warfare from the early 80`s till the present day has taken iraq from a first world country to a third world country.