THE WOUNDED IN IRAQ

We know the deaths caused by suicide bombers and militias in Iraq but we almost never hear about the deaths that are due to a badly damaged health care system.

Iraq Reimposes Freeze on Medical Diplomas In Bid to Keep Doctors From Fleeing Abroad
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 5, 2007; A01

The Iraqi Medical Association, with which all physicians must register to practice, estimates that at least one-third of the country's 40,000 or so doctors have fled to Jordan, Syria and other countries.

Medical schools have also suffered. At Baghdad University's Kindi Teaching Hospital -- where 90 percent of surgeries are trauma cases, mostly involving bomb and shooting victims -- half the teaching positions are vacant, said Hameed Hussein al-Araji, head of the surgery department. General surgery instructors must fill in for specialists, such as the cardiothoracic surgery professor who was assassinated last year, he said.

Before the diploma freeze, the Ministry of Health estimates, about 50 percent of medical students were leaving the country upon graduation.