Why cancer patients participate in the demonstrations in Iraq?

Adel Fakher - Baghdad

Iyad al-Saidi found no way but to participate in the protests in Iraq, an expression of his complaint after he was unable to review hospitals for a cure for cancer, which he suffered for years.

Al-Saidi, a 59-year-old media expert and retired employee, barely breathed to join with a number of cancer patients to express their suffering, after raising modest sums to buy anti-gas masks to shelter them and distribute them to all protesters who needed them. .

Saidi, whose throat was removed because of his illness, breathes through the tracheal opening in the neck, which cannot be covered with a mask, so his participation was in the corner away from sources of gases and smoke.

He spoke of a bitter experience during recent demonstrations, when a gas bomb exploded near him. .

Among hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad and other central and southern provinces demanding reforms, patients are in critical health conditions, putting themselves at greater risk to voice their need for health care, hospitals and medicine.

For women share
Ban Shaker, a woman with cancer who participates in the Baghdad demonstrations, says she spent a lot of money abroad for treatment, a widow whose husband died during a US bombing of Baghdad in 2003.

She got sick years ago, and did not find treatment in Iraq, which forced her to travel abroad and spent large amounts of it, and currently need follow-up and medicines are not always available in Iraq.

What motivates her to participate in the demonstrations, Al-Jazeera Net said that it wants to convey its voice to the government and officials in the state that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have cancer and do not find the required care, and draw them to the contaminated atmosphere of Iraq contribute to the increase of cancer diseases.

Specialized Hospital
According to the family doctor, Dr. Ahmed Al-Rudaini, there is a great neglect of people with cancer in Iraq, pointing out the lack of a private hospital for advanced cancer cases as in most countries of the world, as well as the necessary medicines.

He pointed out that the Iraqi families suffer a lot in the event of one of the members of the cancer, because of the lack of adequate support and the lack of private hospitals.

Regarding how to protect from gases and smoke in the demonstrations, Al-Rudaini, who is among the participants in the demonstrations in Baghdad, said that the demonstrators have become highly experienced in protecting against tear gases, which generates many complications for the people, especially the sick, pointing out that there are many protesters who died Because of suffocation.

And spread on social networking sites a picture of an Iraqi young man named "Abbas" with cancer, died during the demonstrations in the southern province of Basra, died of smoke and tear gas.

Activists also posted a picture of a cancer-afflicted girl who took part in the demonstrations with a banner reading "Corrupt Stole My Treatment."

Psychology of oppression
The head of the Iraqi Psychological Association, Professor Qassim Hussein Saleh, attributed the reasons for the exit of cancer patients to protest and endure the trouble of mobility and long standing, to the psychology of oppression, which transcends the lines of patience and absorb death when they see young people in their lives.

Saleh says to Al Jazeera Net that these factors meet and interact in the personalities of the person with cancer, driven by psychology that first and last will die, and prefer to die in the yards of protest to die in his bed neglected.

Will our voice arrive?
"Will our voice reach?", Iyad Al-Saidi concludes his speech and confirms that "many cancer patients in all governorates have already come to demonstrate with their doctors to provide treatment that patients cannot afford to buy because it is expensive, as well as providing a Pitcane device to detect cancer, and treatments Radiological and chemical despite Iraq's huge financial budget and what is allocated to the Ministry of Health, but to no avail.

There are no official statistics on the number of cancer patients in Iraq, but the evidence confirms the deaths and injury of tens of thousands due to air and water pollution and even buildings as a result of the wars in Iraq and the lack of interest of successive governments to address pollution.

According to a World Health Organization report, cancer rates are rising globally and regionally, with cancer being one of the four leading causes of death in the Eastern Mediterranean.

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, the annual rate of cancer in Iraq is 2500 cases, including 20% ​​the incidence of breast cancer.