Iraq Reimposes Freeze on Medical Diplomas In Bid to Keep Doctors From Fleeing Abroad

Khatib said the Health Ministry had come up with the proposal, noting that the agency that runs the nation's hospitals would be its principal beneficiary. Health Ministry spokesman Qasim Yahya denied the assertion.

Not that his ministry is complaining. "We welcome the decision, even though we know this is against the basic rights of individuals," Yahya said. "But it is in the interest of the Iraqi people."

Iraq's once top-notch medical system has been devastated by 1990s economic sanctions and present-day warfare. Hospitals often run out of such essentials as gauze, antibiotics and even blood, doctors say. Much of their equipment is outdated or broken.

Worst of all, they are running out of doctors, who like many of Iraq's intellectuals have been the frequent targets of kidnappings and assassinations.

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. Waleed Khalid, the association's vice president, said the organization issues 30 to 50 "certificates of good standing" to Iraqi physicians every day -- forms that any doctor must have to work abroad, he said.

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.

Only about 25 percent of students are able to attend classes daily, Araji said. The rest, kept away by explosions and gunfire and roadblocks, use lecture notes to study at home and show up only for exams.

Even against that bleak backdrop, medical school enrollment remains high, officials said. The problem is that many graduates do not stay. Before the diploma freeze, the Ministry of Health estimates, about 50 percent of medical students were leaving the country upon graduation.

The Health Ministry has offered several perks to slow the exodus, said Yahya, the spokesman. Medical school graduates can choose where to complete their internships. Physicians are offered space for private clinics inside hospitals, with free equipment and cheap rent. Some hospitals provide on-campus lodging for doctors and their families, complete with security guards "to reduce the cases of assassinations," he said.

"But many of the doctors say: 'It's not a question of having consultative clinics or housing. We want to live a normal life, where we can take our families out,' " Yahya said.

Precisely, medical students say.

"The government should provide good conditions so that we could stay," said Nada Fadhil, 23, a student at Mustansiriyah who wants to be a radiologist.