For Iraqi mothers-to-be, hospitals are pandemic no-go zones

KUT, IRAQ - Iraqi midwife Umm Mariam used to help bring three babies into the world per day. But with mothers-to-be avoiding pandemic-hit hospitals, she now delivers twice that number in her makeshift home clinic.

"That's why many women now prefer to deliver their children at my place," says Ms Mariam, speaking from the clinic she has set up at her home in Kut, southeast of Baghdad. For years, international sanctions made it impossible to get new medical equipment or even spare parts into the country. Ms Mais, 29, is expecting to give birth to her first child in a few weeks. Last year, she could have gone to a public hospital and paid a small, symbolic fee for the delivery.

One of the nine public hospitals in Wasit province, where Kut is located, has been transformed into a coronavirus treatment ward. "In the first three months of 2020, we carried out 400 surgeries. The next three months, it was just 187," said Dr Qader Fadhel, a surgeon at the public al-Karama hospital.

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