To Empower Women Is to Empower Nations: Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan

August 01, 2017As a health worker in a conflict zone, I  learned what it means to be in the right place at the right time.Being in the right place at the right time —I never had a full understanding of that concept until I started my medical career.Before coming to the United States to get a master ’s degree in public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was a physician at Al-Zahrawi Surgical Hospital in the south of Iraq, one of only two main hospitals in the city of Amarah, inhabited by aboutone million people.Such conditions make complications more frequent.We were 20 new doctors, and only five of us were women. Since it ’s not culturally acceptable for a man to be in a delivery room, all of the female doctors were automatically assigned to the gynecological department.During one of my night shifts at the delivery room, the other hospital in Amarah caught fire, and the doctors had to refer all their patients to our wards. It was a bloody night. We had to work with twice as many patients in a small space. Such conditions make complications more frequent.Within two hours, 20 women had arrived at our delivery ward, which was designed to serve only six. We already had 14 women at various stages of labor in the room so we had to put two women in each bed, some on the floor, and some had to wait outside until we had space.  It was deafening. Everyone was screaming, trying to catch the attention of the nurses or me.Everyone except one. Her name was...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news