Kout (Iraq) (AFP)
Usually, Oum Mariam, a midwife in southern Iraq, gives birth every day at her home to three women. But with the new coronavirus, this figure has more than doubled, his patients claiming to fear being infected in hospital.
In his town of Kout, as elsewhere in the country, hospitals are starting to be overwhelmed and already more than 3,000 caregivers have - officially - been infected.
"It is because they are afraid that many women prefer to give birth at home", assures AFP this fifty-year-old in front of her medical bed.
In a country that until the 1980s prided itself on having one of the best healthcare systems in the Middle East, free for all, public hospitals have become a foil.
- Salty bill -
Dilapidated equipment, poorly trained staff, dilapidated buildings and a health budget that does not even reach 2% in one of the countries which are nevertheless the richest in oil: public hospitals have for years been in competition with private clinics.
Even more today, when the Covid-19 disease has already infected nearly 130,000 Iraqis and killed nearly 5,000 of them.
Mayce, 29, is due to give birth to her first child in a few weeks. In normal times, she could have gone to the public hospital and, for a nominal price, be taken care of.
“But since I was afraid of the coronavirus, my gynecologist advised me to go to a private clinic,” she says.
The bill will be steep: nearly 1,300 euros, "but all my friends have done the same because obstetric services are also used to welcome patients infected with the coronavirus".
In the province of Wassit, where Kout is located, only one of the nine public hospitals has been transformed into a treatment center for Covid-19 disease.
But the number of patients received in the other eight "has been halved", assures Doctor Mehdi al-Choueyli, president of the local branch of the doctors' union.
"In the first quarter of 2020, we carried out 400 surgeries. The following three months, only 187", reports Qader Fadhel, surgeon at al-Karama public hospital.
- Clinics overwhelmed -
A number directly transferred to private clinics.
"Every day, 200 patients come, mainly for surgical operations", assures on condition of anonymity a doctor of a clinic in Kout.
In Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, Dr. Kilan Ahmed is also overwhelmed in his Azadi clinic.
"People with heart disease, diabetes or requiring dialysis have low immunity and prefer to avoid public hospitals," he explains.
Abu Karar, a 32-year-old civil servant in Baghdad, also prefers to go from private practices to clinics to treat his five-year-old son Hossam, who appears to be anemic.
"Between the appointments and the drugs to pay, I am at the end of the line, but I prefer that than taking the risk that my son is infected in the public hospital," he says.
But few families can afford such expenses in Iraq, where the poverty rate was already 20% before the pandemic.
- Self-diagnosis -
The first to see this are pharmacists. One of them, who prefers not to give his name, assures that he has to formulate the diagnoses himself.
Thus, "90% of my clients describe their pain to me so that I can prescribe them medication since they have not seen any doctor before coming," he explains.
Once infected, many Iraqis prefer to stay at home in a country which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) has 14 hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants - compared to 60 in France for example.
The state-owned Taji medical oxygen cylinder plant near Baghdad had to increase its output.
“Every day, we produce 1,000 to 1,500 bottles for hospitals, but we also prepare around 100 bottles for distribution to individuals bedridden at home,” explains Ahmed Abdel Moutlak, number two at the plant.
But in Iraq, where corruption reigns and the drug market meets no rule, speculation has caused prices for individuals to explode.
From oxygen bottles to vitamin C tablets and mineral supplements, prices have sometimes tripled or more.
But many rely on these makeshift treatments, which are always better, they say, than dysfunctional hospitals.
© 2020 AFP