2026-09-08T12:40:14+00:00
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Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraq’s Health Ministry needs at least nine trillion
dinars ($6.84 billion) to cover debts and contracts and secure medicines and
medical supplies, MP Noor Adel, a member of parliament’s Health and Environment
Committee, told Shafaq News on Tuesday.
The requested amount is nearly twice the Health
Ministry’s entire 2025 spending of about 4.8 trillion dinars ($3.7 billion),
according to a budget monitoring report. Healthcare accounted for roughly 2.4%
of Iraq’s 200-trillion-dinar ($154 billion) federal budget, equivalent to about
$78 per person for a population of 47.5 million, based on United Nations data.
Financial pressures were already evident in July, when
Health Minister Abdul Hussein Al-Musawi warned of a “liquidity catastrophe”
that had forced the government to prioritize salaries. Parliamentary health
official Adila Hamoud similarly cautioned that prolonged fiscal strain could
deepen the crisis.
Demand for medical services has also grown with Iraq’s
population, while damage from the war against ISIS continues to constrain
capacity in some areas. Health and Environment Committee member Shahad
Al-Hamdani told Shafaq News in July that more hospitals and primary healthcare
centers were needed, particularly in Nineveh, where several major facilities
were destroyed during the conflict and have yet to be fully replaced.
Plans to expand capacity include 10 new hospitals
scheduled to open in Baghdad and other provinces over the next six months,
Al-Musawi said on Sunday. The facilities will range from 100 to 490 beds.
Read more: Iraq’s healthcare system nears collapse: Doctors leave, hospitals overflow