Debts prevent Kurdistan Region from buying medicines

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health is facing difficulties buying medicines due to 100 billion Iraqi dinars (nearly $86 million) in unpaid bills to drug companies, the minister disclosed on Tuesday.

Health Minister Dr Rekawt Rashid said that the central government in Baghdad provides medicines for the Kurdistan Region, but the quantity is not sufficient to meet demand. The excess would be bought by the Kurdish health ministry with its own funds, but it can no longer afford to do so because of a cash shortage to Kurdistan’s serious financial crisis.

“The ministry of health owes  more than 100 billion Iraqi Dinars to the drug companies. This has led the companies not to sell us drugs,” the minister said. “Regarding this we have talked to the ministry of finance so that a plan could be put in place on how to pay back our debt.”

The Kurdistan Region needs 6 billion Iraqi dinar ($5.1 million) to meet its ever increasing demand for drugs, to meet demand among a population that has increased by 30 percent with the arrival of some 1.8 million war refugees from Syria and internally displaced person from other parts of Iraq.

Rashid’s comments come shortly after health officials in Duhok said they were forced to close three hospitals there this year because some 100 physicians from the province have emigrated abroad.

Rashid said that adjustments must be made to the salaries of medical doctors in order if Kurdistan is to maintain the healthcare it provides.

Kurdistan has been suffering a cash crunch since 2014, when the central government in Baghdad stopped paying the 17 percent of the national budget that constitutionally belongs to Erbil.