“We are going through a difficult situation because some hospitals have been closed due to failure to pay the salaries. A large number of physicians have gone on strike, putting the health service in a bad condition despite the crises like coronavirus and other issues,” Dr. Sabah Hawrami, head of Sulaimani Health Directorate, told reporters on Thursday.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has not paid public sector employees on time and in full since Baghdad stopped sending funds in April. Erbil says it’s entitled to its share of federal funds, while Baghdad says the KRG has not lived up to its end of the deal that includes turning over 250,000 barrels of oil daily to the state oil company.
The two sides have met multiple times, without reaching an agreement and have each blamed the other in a public war of words.
Hawrami called on the KRG to pay health workers on time and treat them separately from other civil servants.
After a dramatic drop in global oil prices and spread of the coronavirus, the KRG is at the mercy of Baghdad. Kurdish officials have openly said they cannot pay civil servants without money from the federal government.
The Region recorded 569 new cases of the virus on Thursday. Some 70 of them were from Sulaimani province which has seen fewer cases in the last two weeks while numbers have surged in Erbil and Duhok provinces.
The total number of cases in the Region is 19,335. Of these, 10,821 people have recovered and 699 have died, according to data from the health ministry.
In June, health workers in Sulaimani went on strike. They went back to work after the government made a partial salary payment.
As hospitals are struggling with COVID-19 patients and shortages in supplies, a European-funded venture hopes to put more than 200 new medical graduates to work. Two hundred and ten medical graduates are being trained to support hospital staff as volunteers. They will assist in responding to the public health crisis and further their own careers, according to a press release on Thursday.
"This volunteering project offers a valuable opportunity for new graduates to gain practical skills and experience, which will help them to find employment in the public and private medical sector. Additionally, the volunteers offer great benefits to the JCC in operating its newly established volunteering system in the Kurdistan Region,” said JCC director Hoshang Mohamed.
The project is coordinated by the European Union’s Qudra-2 aid programme, in collaboration with the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC) and ministries of health and interior.
The cash-strapped KRG is under a hiring freeze and has not hired new employees for several years.
