The founder of Doctors for Iraq, Salam Ismael has told the Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, 3-thousand Iraqi doctors had left Iraq in the past three years.
A spokesperson for the Medical Association for Prevention of War, Australia, Sue Wareham says the health system in Iraq is seriously neglected.
She says, apart from the thousands of doctors who already left Iraq, the other major problem is ensuring medics are neutral and protected.
“He raised the issue of medical neutrality, which is a very important concept, meaning that doctors and other health care professionals must not be targeted in a war-zone, in fact they must in fact be protected, and also the fact that medical doctors themselves must treat anybody according to need, regardless of political factors. Both these factors have been violated in Iraq,” said Ms Wareham.