%0 Journal Article
%T Iraqi health system in kurdistan region: medical professionals' perspectives on challenges and priorities for improvement
%A Nazar P Shabila
%A Namir G Al-Tawil
%A Rebaz Tahir
%A Falah H Shwani
%A Abubakir M Saleh
%A Tariq S Al-Hadithi
%J Conflict and Health
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1752-1505-4-19
%X A survey questionnaire was developed and administered to a convenience sample of 250 medical professionals in Erbil governorate. The questionnaire included four items; rating of the quality of services and availability of resources in the health institutions, view on different aspects of the health system, the perceived priority needs for health system improvement and gender and professional characteristics of the respondents.The response rate to the survey was 83.6%. A high proportion of respondents rated the different aspects of services and resources in the health institutions as weak or very weak including the availability of the required quantity and quality of medicines (68.7%), the availability of sufficient medical equipment and investigation tools (68.7%), and the quality of offered services (65.3%). Around 72% of respondents had a rather negative view on the overall health system. The weak role of medical research, the weak role of professional associations in controlling the system and the inefficient health education were identified as important problems in the current health system (87.9%, 87.1% and 84.9%, respectively). The priority needs of health system improvement included adoption of social insurance for medical care of the poor (82%), enhancing the role of family medicine (77.2%), adopting health insurance system (76.1%) and periodic scientific evaluation of physicians and other health staff (69.8%).Medical professionals were generally unsatisfied with the different aspects of the health system in Iraqi Kurdistan region. A number of problems and different priority needs for health system improvement have been recognized that require to be studied in more details.The major objective of a country's health system is to assure the health of the general public through offering good quality and prompt services according to the needs of the population [1]. The health system needs to go through a process of continuous changes and improvement in order to b
%U http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/4/1/19