The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

medicine at other Middle Eastern medical centers. For the Iraqi medical profession, the Medical Specialty Forum event marked the beginning of a process of rejuvenation. But more work needs to be done, and the obstacles to progress are many and grave. In the months since February, insurgent attacks in Iraq have increased, and civilian injuries and deaths have risen. Optimism is under siege among Iraqi doctors, as evidenced in e-mail messages from physicians telling of bombings of their clinics and cars, of fear of kidnapping of themselves and their children for ransom, and the frustration of learning, after a long day of difficult surgery, that their patient is a terrorist. The fear of being hit by an explosion on the road and being killed in the street as a traitor if you have anything to do with the Americans or the national guard is also very real. “The situation here is very difficult beyond any imagination,” writes one surgeon, a feeling echoed in messages from other Iraqi physicians. Though there is no official tally of professionals assassinated, Iraqi police put the number at “hundreds” in Baghdad alone. Physicians have been killed or threatened; some have closed their practices. “I was given one week,” Abid Ali Mahdi, director of the Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine in Baghdad told the New York Times in February. “But I can’t quit. If I step down, nobody would come and take my place.” Dr. Hamid Al-Mondhiry, a hematologist at Penn State, who participated in the Baghdad forum shares this concern. “The criminals are kidnapping doctors, scientists and business people for money,” he says. “They want the most talented to leave Iraq.” A native Iraqi, Dr. Al-Mondhiry left his home country more than 20 years ago and is most anxious to aid in the recon- struction of the health-care system there. “The escalat- ing violence breaks my heart,” he says. Our Shared Profession Binds Us Almost six months after their experience in Iraq, nearly all of the 30 American physicians who traveled to Baghdad for the Iraqi Medical Specialty Forum gath- ered once again — this time in the Washington, D.C., area. Their reunion took place on Sept. 25-26, but this time the meeting also included high-level officials from the Departments of State, Health & Human Services and Defense, along with representatives from Project F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 S upporting essential health and education is one of USAID’s four priority commitments in Iraq. The agency’s goals include supporting a reformed Iraqi Ministry of Health, delivering essential health services, funding vac- cines and high-protein biscuits for pregnant and nursing mothers and malnourished children, providing basic pri- mary health care equipment and supplies, training and upgrading health staff, providing health education and information, and identifying the specific needs of the health sector and of vulnerable populations. USAID works with Iraq’s Ministry of Health, UNICEF and a variety of nongovernmental organizations and private- sector partners to meet these goals. These are some of the major accomplishments to date: • Re-equipped more than half of the 600 primary health care centers in Iraq, each with approximately 60 items of basic medical equipment, office furniture, and laboratory equipment. • Vaccinated over three million children under age 5 and 700,000 pregnant women in campaigns that included monthly immunization days. • Provided supplementary doses of Vitamin A for more than 600,000 children under age 2 and 1.5 million lactating mothers. • Provided iron folate supplements for over 1.6 million women of childbearing age. • Screened more than 1.3 million children under age 5 for malnutrition. • Distributed high-protein biscuits to more than 450,000 children and 200,000 pregnant and nursing mothers. • Provided potable water for 400,000 persons each day in Basrah and 170,000 persons in Kirkuk and Mosul. • Provided skills training for 2,500 primary health care providers and 700 physicians. • Trained 2,000 health educators, teachers, religious leaders and youth to mobilize communities on hygiene, diarrhea, breastfeeding, nutrition and immunization issues. • Provided vaccines and cold chain equipment to select- ed health centers. • Developed a national plan for the fortification of wheat flour with iron and folic acid. — From the USAID Web site, http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/health.html USAID’s Health Mission in Iraq