Iraqi doctors win right to carry guns

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Improved security, plus the right to carry a gun, could see more Iraqi doctors return home.

Iraqi doctors have been given the right to carry a weapon to protect themselves from attack.

The Iraqi government has announced that every doctor will be allowed to carry one weapon for self defense.

The move came in response to doctor's calls for better protection earlier in the summer, after reports showed that 176 doctors had been killed as a result of the fighting in the last five years.

In the same decree issued last month the cabinet recommended that the Ministry of Health (MoH) and provincial governments should make plans to build secure residential compounds for doctors both inside and outside hospitals.

However, doctors working in the war-torn country say the security situation has improved dramatically in the past 18 months and that the ruling has come too late.

Zaid Abdul-Nafie, an oculist at Baghdad's Ibn Al-Haitham eye hospital said: "I will not carry a weapon. If this decision had been issued earlier things might have been different. Now the situation is much better, doctors can go to their clinics or hospitals more freely, much better than last year."

Improvements in the security situation were used in a government-led campaign this summer to encourage refugee doctors back to their homeland.

The drive resulted in 250 physicians returning during August and September, bringing the total number of returners this year to 650.

However, this is still a fraction of the 8,000 strong pre-war medical workforce, according to MoH figures.

Adel Muhsin, inspector general at the Ministry, said he hoped the figures would encourage more doctors home.

Just 16,000 healthcare workers currently run Iraq's hospitals and clinics across the country, Mushin said.

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