Dahr Jamail: Iraqi doctors out on a limb

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22008

Iraqi doctors out on a limb
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2007-05-01 18:03. Media

By Dahr Jamail in Damascus, Syria, http://dahrjamailiraq.com


Dr Omar al-Khattab fled Iraq just over a year ago after receiving death threats.

At that time, he was working at Balad General Hospital, 50km north of Baghdad.

"I had to leave my home, my work and my salary so now I'm living here jobless and am just barely surviving," he said during an interview inside an almost bare apartment in the Al-Qudsiya suburb of Damascus.

"In my hospital alone, of five surgeons only one remains. We were three orthopaedics but now there are none, and only 25 per cent of the resident doctors remain."

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health and UN statistics, Khattab is one of 18,000 Iraqi doctors and health care professionals who have fled the war-torn country since the US-led invasion began in March 2003.

In 2003, there were 34,000 registered health care workers in Iraq.

more...

[magellan]

1. If they escape with their lives they're lucky

There are so many who can't. Not that I blame this doctor or the other professionals who've fled Iraq. They're no good to their countrymen dead, either. And Bush** calls this "success".

Dahr Jamail rocks. K&R

[stellanoir]

2. Though the RW nutz ignorantly describe them as "towel heads"

there were more PHD's in Iraq per capita than there were here.

How many have fled or been assasinated, we'll never know.

Just sickening.