On Friday evening, media outlets and social media pages in Iraq shared a video from Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, showing a group of citizens struggling to carry a patient with severe fractures up the stairs due to a malfunctioning elevator. This heartbreaking footage underscores the deterioration in the Iraqi healthcare sector and the dilapidation of medical institutions and hospitals in the country, as noted by furious comments on social media platforms.
Some commented that instead of receiving proper care in Iraqi hospitals, patients often see their health deteriorate upon entering these facilities, citing the incident of the broken elevators at Al-Yarmouk Hospital, as well as a prior fire incident at Ibn al-Khatib Hospital. An unnamed Iraqi doctor commented on the video in an interview with Sky News Arabia, stating, "A critically ill patient is treated in the emergency department of this hospital; every minute counts in alleviating their pain and reducing the risks to their life."
He added, "Carrying a patient with fractures up the stairs on their bed reflects the tragic and laughable reality we have reached in Iraq." The doctor mentioned, "There are dozens of similar stories almost daily in hospitals and health centers, but no one hears or sees them. Even this video documenting the broken elevators and the need for people to carry their patients and ascend and descend between hospital floors circulated thanks to a bystander's recording of the painful incident. Is there anything worse or more horrifying than this, showcasing the abyss to which the crumbling Iraqi health sector has sunk?"
Despite a statement from the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment acknowledging a brief disruption of one of the hospital's elevators, it did not provide an explanation for the incident captured in the video.
In a similar incident reflecting the grim state of the healthcare sector in Iraq, another shocking video circulated a few days ago, showing a child's body lying on the floor in a hospital in Basra, southern Iraq. The strange and unusual reason for this tragedy was the closure of the morgue and the absence of its supervisor, leading citizens to comment that it was "an excuse worse than the sin."
Iraq suffers from a decaying health system, with health centers, hospitals, and clinics lacking basic standards, and incidents stemming from this issue are recurring across various Iraqi provinces.
