pediatric heart surgery in Iraq - 20,000 babies on waiting list

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/08/201082810429993152.html


Iraq's troubled young hearts


A decimated healthcare system cannot meet the need for pediatric heart surgery. In all the waiting list is above 20,000.

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In Iraqi Kurdistan, an estimated 4,000 children are waiting for heart surgeries. Decades of malnutrition, intra-family marriage and, many believe, the remnants of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons deformed their hearts at birth. The deformities are exquisitely complex - a challenge for even the best pediatric surgeons. But Kurdistan has none.

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Coming from him, the future of Iraq's young hearts seems particularly desperate. "This is a hideous problem," he explained. "I've covered every possible place for heart surgery in this country. All six of them put together are not operating on 400 kids a year. This country has a population of 30 million. With a birth rate of 35 per thousand, they are generating in excess, by conservative estimates, 6,000 new children a year that need surgery."

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Healthcare is officially free in Iraq. In reality, there are both public and private sectors and all the country's doctors work in both branches. Doctors are paid the same flat salary in the public system no matter what their area of expertise.

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To make the situation even more pressing, Kurdistan's hospitals do not only service northern Iraq. The rest of the country's healthcare system has been decimated since the US invasion, leaving thousands to seek help in functional hospitals in the north.
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we did this, our empire did this

nt

Who went without adequate food, water and medicine. No wonder they hate us. ;(