Iraq’s Prescription for Violent Barriers to Health Care: Cell Phones and E-mail

KEYWORDS:
• CELLULAR PHONE
• DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE
• ELECTRONIC MAIL
• INTERNET
• INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
• IRAQ
• PHYSICIANS
• PUBLIC HEALTH
• STATISTICS AS TOPIC
• TELEMEDICINE
• VIOLENCE
• VOLUNTARY WORKERS
• WAR
• WORLD HEALTH

Chicago—Two small tools taken for granted in much of the industrialized world—e-mail and the ubiquitous cell phone—could play major roles in helping Iraqi physicians fly over the radar of wartime violence to treat patients more effectively and help restore the country's once-robust health care system.

Although Iraqi physicians often work in a setting of violence and security threats, a new Internet-based program will allow volunteer physicians from other parts of the world to offer assistance on nonemergency cases via the internet and cell phones.

(Photo credit: AP/Wide World Photos)

Since the 2003 US invasion, Iraqi medical professionals have been stretched to their limits. They are called on to treat casualties from explosions and car bombings so massive that patients in some cases outnumber hospital beds by 2 to 1. Physicians in Iraq also have become targets themselves, killed by death squads or kidnapped and held for ransom. Basic security needs compete daily with Iraqis' …