Letter

Beware the commercialisation of Iraqi health care

The tragic bombing of the UN reminds us that beyond the issue of humanitarian assistance, there is a country that needs to be put back together. It is hoped that when this happens, the country’s prized assets will not have been sold-off. Why this concern?

Iraq is a relatively rich country. The revenue it makes from its oil sales is being used to help fund the reconstruction of the country. There is plenty of evidence of this reconstruction benefiting American companies.

In addition, we know that the neo-liberal ideology of the Bush regime will push the Iraqi health system towards a model of marketisation and privatisation. There are rich and potentially profitable hospitals to be ‘captured’.

While there is the need to focus on the immediate humanitarian demands of the post-war situation, it is absolutely critical that the American occupation (nor the pernicious influence of the World Bank and IMF) does not impose the development of an American style health care system, and bring to Iraq, all the social ills of inequity; horizontally stratified health systems; inefficient supplier-induced demand; defensive medicine; the transformation of health care into a commercial product; and the systematic undermining of public health.

It is important that health policies determining the future of the Iraq health care system are discussed and debated in an open and transparent manner, and most of all, are determined by the Iraqi community themselves – and preferably by those Iraqis who are not hand-picked by the American administration and who do not have a vested interest in private health care.

The humanitarian agencies in Iraq must raise the alarm on this loudly before it is too late to reverse.