Newsweek profiles the sad state of health care in Iraq, where doctors have fled in droves:
The medical profession in particular has been hollowed out. Iraq’s health-care system used to be the envy of the Arab world. Even in the 1990s, when sanctions and Saddam Hussein’s worsening misrule crippled much of the country, people came from all over the region to study medicine or seek treatment. But after the U.S. invasion, doctors became targets for ransom kidnappings and assassination. Upwards of 120 physicians were killed. Some were gunned down in their own clinics. Things got worse than ever after 2005, when loyalists of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gained control of the Health Ministry. Hospitals turned into Shiite militia bases where Sunnis could be killed on sight.
Can the oil-rich country lure physicians back with promises of money, free land and most importantly, security?
