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Kurdistan Parliament; Health Policy
Challenges and Opportunities
11.8.2009
By Dr. Goran Zangana
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August 11, 2009
ERBIL-Hewlęr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — The
parliament of Kurdistan faces a host of public
health challenges that represent health policy
opportunities. Addressing those public health issues
through appropriate bills, that establish for
policies at the health infrastructure levels, would
prove beneficial not only for the ordinary people
but also a great political move for gaining support
and votes in future elections.
The people of Kurdistan face a range of public
health risks that transcend political and partisan
differences and conflicts. Addressing those risks
could prove a chance to mitigate the political
tensions arose during the election campaign and
provide an avenue for starting a calm and
responsible dialogue among the members of the
parliament of different political lists and parties.
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Dr
Goran Zangana, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq. Medical
Doctor Master of Public Health Fulbright Fellow/
Emory |
This
is an invitation for professionals, policy makers
and other stakeholders to start brainstorming about
the public health priorities that can be addressed
through bills in the Parliament,
1. Enrichment of Flour with Folic Acid: In my 10
years tenure in Medicine, I have seen many cases of
Anencephaly, Spina Bifida and other neural tube
defects in labor rooms and maternity hospitals. In
fact my own sister and aunt had had abortions due to
significant neural tube defects in their embryos.
Despite the fact that we don't have solid data
demonstrating the incidence and prevalence of neural
tube defect, but I think enriching the flour we eat
with folic acid would be much more cost effective
even that starting a study to document the problem.
2. A Mental Health Act: The mentally ill people of
Kurdistan are among the most disadvantaged people of
the country. A host of political, economic and
social factors had contributed to only increasing
the incidence and prevalence of mental illness but
also negatively impacted the stigmatization and
further marginalization of this vulnerable
population. It is necessary to address this issue by
the parliament through passing an act that help to
protect,www.ekurd.net
respect and fulfil the rights of people with mental
illness and retardation.
3. Eliminating Leed in Gas: Iraq is one of the
developing countries that still have leed in the
automobile gas. Leed has a host of serious health
consequences that affect the intellectual capacities
and cognitive functions of kids and adults. Its
important to start thinking about ways of
eliminating Leed from gas.
4. Use of technology in Health care: Modern
technology is one of the prerequisite for an
advanced and successful business in today's world.
The health care system is way behind other
industries in adopting new technologies like
computers and the Internet for the provision of
health care services. The latter tools would
decrease the incidence of errors,www.ekurd.net
enhance the quality of the provided health care and
increase the speed with which health care services
are provided in addition to providing a platform for
research and data analysis. The archaic paper based
system of health care provision in Kurdistan is so
old to sustain and costing the system much needed
resources while doesn't prevent human errors and
undermine the quality of health care services.
There are other issues that are non-partisan and
transcend political and partisan conflicts that we
can start working on before addressing more
sensitive and politically polarizing issues like the
separation of public and private sector's of the
health care system and paralyzing involvement of
politics in health care.
Dr. Goran Zangana, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq.
Medical Doctor Master of Public Health Fulbright
Fellow/ Emory, you may visit Zangana's blog at
http://kurdistanhealth.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2009 ekurd.net
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