Iraq’s Prescription for Violent Barriers to Health Care: Cell Phones and E-mail

Abstract

CHICAGO—Two small tools taken for granted in much of the industrialized world—e-mail and the ubiquitous cell phone—could play major roles in helping Iraqi physicians fly over the radar of wartime violence to treat patients more effectively and help restore the country’s once-robust health care system. Since the 2003 US invasion, Iraqi medical professionals have been stretched to their limits. They are called on to treat casualties from explosions and car bombings so massive that patients in some cases outnumber hospital beds by 2 to 1. Physicians in Iraq also have become targets themselves, killed by death squads or kidnapped and held for ransom. Basic security needs compete daily with Iraqis’ medical and public health needs. These threatening conditions make it difficult or impossible for physicians in other parts of the world to volunteer in Iraq, and the country’s damaged infrastructure may not support sophisticated electronic communications technologies. So a diverse group of experts has joined forces to explore just how much support may be available to Iraqi health professionals through relatively simple electronic communications technologies and a global aid network. During a daylong conference here last May, these experts met in brainstorming sessions to develop new options for Iraq’s Ministry of Health to use to strengthen the country’s health system now and in the coming years. “We are here to establish bridges between the Iraq Ministry of Health and our colleagues in the United States,” said Iraqi Health Minister Salih Al Hasnawi, MD. “We are working for the future, to see our country again positioned . . . as it was before . . . one of the most important countries in the Middle East.”