Basra launches new health system to reduce major hospital patients-official

BASRA/IraqiNews.com: Health authorities in provinces of Najaf and Basra have started a new referral directive to reduce the number of patients visiting major hospitals on Sunday. “Basra Health Department has started “referral” directive to reduce the number of patients visiting major public hospitals and to better regulate the treatment of the sick,” Yahiya Hassan, director of Basra Health Department, told IraqiNews.com. “The new administrative system would be applied in Basra and then to be generalised in all provinces,” he explained. Patients have to pass through their local medical centres where general practitioners decide whether the sick need a referral to major public hospitals. “Medical centres were supplied with different me dines to be able to work according to the new system,” he noted “no patient would be received in consultancy clinics except for emergency cases”. Meanwhile, Najaf Health Department announced it has started the referral system despite facing uphill difficulty in applying the system. “The referral system is modern and applied in developed states an would enable doctors an opportunity to treat patients”. Iraqi hospital has suffered from decades of sanctions imposed over the country in 1990’s and lacked staff and equipment after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Casualties left from waves of violence exceeded the capacity of most hospital that many wounded could not get the required medications. AM(S) 1