Country in need of doctors fights to get them back

Thousands fled Iraq amid attacks and kidnappings
By KARIN LAUB Associated Press

BAGHDAD — A kidney specialist who fled Iraq's bombings, kidnappings and sectarian killings 20 months ago has reported back to work at his Baghdad hospital — one of about 800 doctors who have returned over the summer.

Doctors are just a tiny group among Iraq's more than 4 million refugees and displaced, but Iraq's health minister says their homecoming sends a message to other emigres that security has "improved dramatically."

Still, the nephrologist, who came back from Britain in July, remains cautious. He mostly sleeps at his workplace, Baghdad's Surgical Hospital, because he fears being attacked en route to his hometown, an insurgent stronghold north of Baghdad. He refused to give his name for publication because he still fears being targeted.

For every doctor who comes back, nine stay away.

About 8,000 physicians, most of them specialists, have abandoned jobs at government health centers since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, most seeking refuge abroad and a few hundred heading to the relative safety of Iraq's Kurdish region. Many ran from a violent campaign by extremists and crime gangs that targeted Iraq's elite.

Long waits for treatment
Their departure has further crippled a health care system plagued by corruption, mismanagement and a lack of equipment and drugs.

Health Minister Dr. Salih al-Hasnawi said getting doctors back is key to turning the situation around. Al-Hasnawi has floated the idea of turning Baghdad's Medical City, a five-hospital complex near the Tigris River, into a safety zone for visiting emigre specialists.

Al-Hasnawi promoted the plan in a meeting in Jordan with Iraqi doctors.

"Our proposal is that the military can provide security for this complex and we bring doctors from outside Iraq because it is a secure area," he said.

"This is a first step in bringing the doctors home," he added.

Iraq needs 100,000 doctors and has only 15,500, said Adel Muhsin, a top Health Ministry official. Egypt and Jordan, paupers compared to oil-rich Iraq, have almost four times as many — 24 per 10,000 residents to Iraq's six per 10,000.

Iraqi rheumatologist Dr. Muneeb al-Huwaish, who has settled in the Jordanian capital of Amman, said he likes the idea of the complex but that it's not enough to lure him back.

"When you leave the hospital and go home, you don't know what will happen to you," said the 61-year-old, who fled Iraq in late 2004 after being seized by a dozen gunmen outside his Baghdad clinic.

Al-Huwaish's experience isn't unusual.

Targeted by militants
In the past five years, Iraq's doctors, professionals and academics have been targeted by militants trying to widen chaos or by extortion gangs going after the wealthy. Since 2003, at least 620 medical professionals, including 134 doctors, have been killed and many more threatened.

"Simply, the goal is to destroy Iraq," Muhsin said.

Dr. Waleed Ibraheem, a top anesthesiologist also threatened by militants, tries to prevent further defections by appealing to team spirit. "Usually, I tell my staff those patients could be one of our family," he said. "So if I run away, you run away, everyone runs away, who will treat them?"

As an incentive, the government has sharply increased doctors' salaries. Specialists now make $2,000 to $3,000 a month, while under Saddam Hussein's rule, doctors would earn as little as $30.

But some doctors may be gone for good.

Dr. Zaid al-Sharbaqi, 29, a general practitioner who left Baghdad in 2006, has settled in faraway Stockholm, studying Swedish in preparation for the local medical exams.

"I'm dreaming to go back to Iraq, but I think the situation is still dangerous for all Iraqis," he said. "Every day, I become more and more tired when I listen to the news."