One Doctor Aims For Better Health Care In Iraq

After nearly a decade of war and, before that, more than a decade of economic sanctions, Iraq's medical and health systems are in shambles. Hospitals have been destroyed, doctors have fled the country, and the Ministry of Health is riddled with corruption.

The problems are overwhelming, but one individual — born in Iraq but now a citizen of the United States — is not discouraged. Dr. Adel Hanson works for the U.S. Army, specifically in the office of the deputy commander. He works alone, though — sets his own schedule and his own priorities....

One of Hanson's biggest projects is fighting corruption in the medical system. He cites just one example. "[The] Iraqi population is 30 million people, but the drugs they imported and used is almost for 80 million people. ... They imported more drugs than they needed because of the kickbacks," he says.

So Hanson came up with a solution that could fight corruption at all levels in the medical system. It's a computerized medical records system called WorldVista. It was developed for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and has now spread all over the world.

Hanson wants to bring it to Iraq, and so far he has the agreement of the minister of defense, the minister of health and the Kurdish minister of health.

After a meeting a few days ago with Dr. Quraish al-Qasser, adviser to Iraq's prime minister on health, the proposal is now on the prime minister's desk. "It's one of the ways how to help people and to prevent the corruption that we are having regarding these drugs," Hanson says. "So we ended with a solution to inform the prime minister himself about that, because it's a big project that we may introduce to our health care system."