Health Care in Iraq Was Better Under Saddam Hussein
Great article explains the health system in Iraq before the US occupation and compare it with the post occupation.
What the article didn’t said is that all medicines were supported by the Iraqi government with 70% from it price, patients pay 30% of the actual price, patients with chronic diseases can obtain their medicines for free.
Health Care in Iraq Was Better Under Saddam Hussein
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.
Infant mortality rates fell from 80 per 1,000 live births in 1974, to 60 in 1982 and 40 in 1989, according to government statistics.
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