Healthcare in Iraq: Difference between revisions

Iraq had developed a centralized free and universal healthcare 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 97% of the urban dwellers and 71% of the rural population had access to free primary health care prior to 1990; just 2 percent of hospital beds were privately managed.