Kurdish NGO provides free treatment to patients with rare diseases

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Duhok-based non-governmental medical organization has given free healthcare to hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from rare or chronic diseases.

“Heevie is one of the organisations which voluntarily provides treatment to patients, including chronic diseases,” Davan Kak Ahmed, representative of Kurdistan Presidency’s health department, told Rudaw’s Ranja Jamal on Thursday. 

The NGO wants to show people the medical side of philanthropism, especially those living in camps, she said.
 
Heevie describes itself as “an independent non-political, nonprofit organization specialized in providing various health care services especially for children, registered as a non-governmental organization in Kurdistan in 2005. Heevie works in a wide area of Iraq but mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan.” 

It was founded to serve patients with rare and serious illnesses who could not obtain treatment through the health sector that had been neglected for years by the central Iraqi government. It is sponsored by the Kurdistan Regional Presidency’s health department and has provided treatment to over 2.5 million patients in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

The NGO also brings experts from outside the Region to treat patients with rare diseases, and sends patients abroad for treatment. It has coordinated with an Italian medical team which has carried out 823 surgeries. Another 532 patients have been sent to Italy for treatment. 

Mohammed Mahmoud is project manager at Heevie. “The Heevie organisation has a very unique program to treat those patients with congenital heart and kidney diseases,” he told Rudaw.

In 2022 alone, more than 497,000 patients benefited from the organisation, according to Mahmoud.

Heevie participated in the Medical Kurdistan conference held in Erbil on Thursday, attracting dozens of local and international doctors, organisers and participants. The conference says on its website that it "welcomes all scientists, clinicians, students, health allied staff, researchers, and professionals from Iraq and all over the world to submit their research findings and meet to discuss recent advances and innovations in all branches of clinical and preclinical medical sciences.”