WTF: Iranians have a Constitutional right to basic healthcare

[AlphaCentauri]

The constitution entitles Iranians to basic health care, and most receive subsidized prescription drugs and vaccination programs. An extensive network of public clinics offers basic care at low cost, and general and specialty hospitals operated by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) provide higher levels of care. In most large cities, well-to-do persons use private clinics and hospitals that charge high fees. About 73% of all Iranian workers have social security coverage.

Iran has been very successful in training/educating the necessary human resources for its health system. The system of almost 30 years ago where the country was facing a shortage of all kinds of skilled personnel in the health and medical sector has been completely changed into one in which the necessary professionals now completely suffice the country’s needs. There are now 488 government funded hospitals in Iran. There were 0.5-1.1 physicians per 1000 population in 2004 according to various estimates (about 46 percent of physicians were women).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Iran

[Ian David]

1. You were just listening to Thom Hartman too? n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

5. not today but I'll tune in n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. Yeah, but we have fair and honest elections

Oh wait.... hmmm.... Never mind.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Well there's a surprise

Not.

Interesting the percentage of physicians who are female. Dunno what the UK equivalent is but I wouldn't have thought it was that high.

[mikelgb]

4. They hate us for our freedoms.

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. HA!

:thumbsup:

[Turborama]

6. Iraq had a sophisticated free health care system under Saddam Hussein

Health Care in Iraq Was Better Under Saddam Hussein

By Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch
Posted on January 19, 2007

=snip=

Iraq's health care system

While some critics focused on the failure to deliver the PHC system, others questioned the whole U.S. approach. Iraq had developed a centralized free health care system in the 1970s using a hospital based, capital-intensive model of curative care. The country depended on large-scale imports of medicines, medical equipment and even nurses, paid for with oil export income, according to a "Watching Brief" report issued jointly by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2003.

Unlike other poorer countries, which focused on mass health care using primary care practitioners, Iraq developed a Westernized system of sophisticated hospitals with advanced medical procedures, provided by specialist physicians. The UNICEF/WHO report noted that prior to 1990, 97 percent of the urban dwellers and 71 percent of the rural population had access to free primary health care; just 2 percent of hospital beds were privately managed.

Infant mortality rates fell from 80 per 1,000 live births in 1974, to 60 in 1982 and 40 in 1989, according to government statistics. A similar trend characterized under-five mortality rates which halved from 120 per 1,000 live births in 1974 to 60 in 1989. (Later studies have questioned these optimistic Iraqi government figures.)

With the 1991 Gulf War that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the situation changed dramatically. The war damaged hospitals, power generation, and water treatment facilities; foreign nurses left the country; and the health budget was slashed. From US$500 million in 1989, the import budget plummeted to US$50 million in 1991 and then to $22 million in 1995. Spending per capita fell from a minimum of US$86 to US$17 in 1996.

Full article: http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/46856]

(edited to fix typo)

[AlphaCentauri]

8. The health care system that took care of Jessica Lynch n/t

[Posteritatis]

10. To be fair, the current one is...

It just adopts a different method, namely, ensuring that people have no further need of health care ever!

[Billy Burnett]

7. Cuba too.

Looks a lot like a reason to be on the US's evildoer list is to have national health care.

After the 1959 revolution
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[AlphaCentauri]

17. Thanks for those facts

[Posteritatis]

11. The gender split in physicians is a pleasant surprise; I didn't know it was that close (nt)

[Hawkowl]

12. Axis of Evil

That is why they are part of the axis of evil. Iran represents the destruction of the American insurance industry and must be annihilated with nuclear weapons.

[lefthandedlefty]

13. Maybe that is the reason John McCain wants to bomb bomb

bomb Iran

[Raskolnik]

14. And Mussolini made the trains run on time.

That doesn't make Fascism an attractive form of governance.

[AlphaCentauri]

15. and health insurance let you choose your doctor

and may not cover dental work

[Raskolnik]

16. Um, ok?

I guess?

[dipsydoodle]

18. Kick.

.