Iraqis Blame Hospital Fire on Mismanagement and Corruption

Relatives carry a coffin of a victim killed in a devastating fire in a Baghdad hospital on Sunday, one of over 80 people who died - AFP
Relatives carry a coffin of a victim killed in a devastating fire in a Baghdad hospital on Sunday, one of over 80 people who died - AFP
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Iraqis Blame Hospital Fire on Mismanagement and Corruption

Relatives carry a coffin of a victim killed in a devastating fire in a Baghdad hospital on Sunday, one of over 80 people who died - AFP
Relatives carry a coffin of a victim killed in a devastating fire in a Baghdad hospital on Sunday, one of over 80 people who died - AFP

The death of over 80 people in a Baghdad Covid-19 hospital fire was seen by Iraqis Sunday as more proof of the deadly consequences of mismanagement and corruption.

Iraqis, some of whom evacuated the injured themselves, blamed Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi, who was suspended Sunday, with calls for him to be sacked resounding across social media.

The deadly inferno broke out overnight Sunday at Baghdad's Ibn al-Khatib hospital, blamed on poorly stored oxygen cylinders.

The interior ministry said 82 people were killed and 110 people injured, AFP reported.

An official with the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said 28 of those killed were patients who were taken off critical ventilators to escape the flames.

The evacuation was slow, painful and chaotic, with patients and their relatives crammed into stairwells as they scrambled for exits.

President Barham Saleh tweeted on Sunday "the tragedy at Ibn al-Khatib is the result of years of erosion of state institutions by corruption and mismanagement".

A doctor at the hospital said that "in the whole Covid intensive care unit, there were no emergency exits or fire prevention systems".

Witnesses and doctors told AFP many bodies had yet to be identified, the remains too charred by the intense flames.

These issues were raised in a 2017 public report on the Iraqi health sector, exhumed overnight in the wake of the fire by the country's human rights commission.

"It's mismanagement that killed these people," the doctor added, who, on condition of anonymity, angrily listed the hospital's many shortcomings.

"Managers walk around smoking in the hospital where oxygen cylinders are stored," he said. "Even in intensive care, there are always two or three friends or relatives at a patient's bedside."

And, he added, "this doesn't just happen at Ibn al-Khatib, it's like this in all the public hospitals".

"When equipment breaks down, our director tells us not to report it," said a nurse, in another hospital in Baghdad.

"He says it would give a bad image of his establishment, but in reality, we have nothing that works."

These institutions -- which until the 1980s were the pride of Iraq, known across the Arab world for its free, high quality public health services -- are now seen as an embarrassment by many.

Their equipment is outdated, staff are poorly trained and buildings crumbling.

In Iraq, the health sector only accounts for two percent of the budget, despite the country being one of the most oil-rich in the world.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Iraq only has 13 hospital beds and eight doctors for every 10,000 people. Forty years ago, there were 19 beds per person.

Moreover, with corruption rife and the drug market unregulated, speculation has driven prices through the roof.

From oxygen cylinders to vitamin C tablets, prices have risen threefold or more since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Many Iraqis have long opted to go abroad for operations and treatment, mainly to neighboring Iran and Syria, where currency devaluations in recent years have upped their purchasing power.

For Iraqis, thousands of whom protested for months starting in October 2019 against widespread corruption, the breakdown of public services is the direct result of years of nepotism and political self-preservation.

On Sunday, Iraqis questioned if the suspended health minister would be sacked, because he is backed by the powerful Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr.

Local and hospital officials have already been suspended over the fire and are being questioned, but they are only scapegoats, angry social media users say.

In the face of an intransigent status quo and leaders they consider "corrupt" and "incompetent", Iraqis have long fended for themselves.

As the fire raged Sunday, it was young men, bare-chested with their shirts as face masks against the acrid smoke, who pulled the injured from the burning building, loaded ambulances and helped survivors escape.



Lebanon Bans Dealing with Hezbollah Financial Entity

A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
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Lebanon Bans Dealing with Hezbollah Financial Entity

A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo

Lebanon's central bank has banned banks and brokerages from dealing with a Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution, according to a circular, a sign of the group's diminished sway over state affairs since its devastating war with Israel.

Keeping up military pressure on the Iran-backed group, Israel on Tuesday launched some of its heaviest airstrikes since a ceasefire in November, saying it hit training camps and weapons depots in east Lebanon. A security source in Lebanon said 12 people were killed, five of them Hezbollah fighters, Reuters reported.

Hezbollah has faced mounting pressures since the war, including financial ones.

In the circular, dated July 14 and reviewed by Reuters, Banque du Liban prohibited all licensed financial institutions in Lebanon from dealing directly or indirectly with unlicensed entities and listed Hezbollah's Al-Qard Al-Hassan as an example.

The US Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on Al-Qard Al-Hassan in 2007, saying Hezbollah used it as a cover to manage "financial activities and gain access to the international financial system".

Bolstered by its powerful arsenal, Hezbollah had long exercised decisive influence over Lebanese state affairs, but it was unable to impose its will in the formation of a post-war government in February.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, founded in 1983, describes itself as a charitable organisation which provides loans to people according to Islamic principles that forbid interest. Israel struck some of its branches during its war with Hezbollah last year.

Operating as a not-for-profit organisation under a licence granted by the Lebanese government, it has more than 30 branches, mostly in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

SHADOW ECONOMY

A Lebanese official said the central bank move had been in the works for months, and reflected US pressure on Lebanon to take action against Hezbollah's financial wing.

Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, said Lebanese banks were already careful to avoid dealing with Al-Qard Al-Hassan because it is under US sanctions.

"The important point is that finally the authorities are addressing the shadow economy in Lebanon, which is the real problem," he said, adding that authorities had long failed to address its "toxic effects".

In June, the European Commission included Lebanon in an updated list of high-risk jurisdictions presenting strategic deficiencies in their national anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.

Last year, global financial crime watchdog FATF placed Lebanon on its "grey list" of countries under special scrutiny.