Updated link is http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/iraq2019s

This is a repost to possibly a more appropriate community from the catch all OIF threadline and now I have the link above to the Article referenced.


2001 --Iraq had 34,000 physicians and no War
2006 -- 18,000 have fled or ceased practicing publicly
2007 --2,000 physicians dead by report --this number strains credibility but if accurate physicians are being killed in Iraq at a rate close to killings of Iraqi police officers 5.8% for physicians vs 6.3% for new Iraqi police

These figures and reports are in August 2007 issue of Discover Magazine article "Iraqi Medical Meltdown". The Medical system in Iraq has been attacked not on a bricks and mortar level but at a staff level which is more devastating.

Imagine an enemy getting the phone list of an Army Battalion from Private to Colonel or worse their families phone numbers, and subjecting them to personal and family death threats, add to that a few actual attacks and killings and you have a battalion that is at least impaired if it does not melt away in vain individual attempts to protect family. My assumption is similar sustained attacks have plagued much of the remaining infrastructure and new army personel in Iraq. Very ingeneous, they have leveraged technology to separate the soldier from his weapon and unit at least mentally if not physically.

If this report and others like it are credible refering to reports earlier this year of the New Iraqi government refusing to issue travel visa's and diplomas from medical school to prevent new graduate emigration in an attempt to stem the exodus of physicians.

In the end the Mercy and Comfort without a staff are converted bulk cargo ships. Charity hospital in New Orleans is a stack of bricks now.

With this hostile enviroment NGO's and other nonmilitary medical providers have a very hard time functioning similar to the indigenous health system. US AID and the US military medical assets do not seem to be able to step up to this problem.

My suggestion is control all the modern communication systems in the country. If you want to buy a cell phone that works then you must have a valid address and submit to biometric scans and family and associate relationship questions of census takers. Difficult --very. slow-- yes, but possibly easier and more sustainable than ploping the Comfort or Mercy staff in medical city hospital Baghdad to staff it on a rotating basis. Also The Iraqi government may want to give new medical graduates body armor and a side arm as a graduation gift while they hold their passports (I understand visa's to England may already be hard to get anyway)

Any thoughts for mitigating the humanitarian impact the problem has on the population and or stoping this avenue of attack?


Mason