About Middle East
Middle East is geographically a transcontinental area which includes countries from the Northern Africa, such as Egypt and Libya and countries from Western Asia, such as Israel, Palestine, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman and Turkey.
The Middle East region is home to more than 400 million people. The countries with the largest populations in the region are Iran, almost 82 million people, Turkey 79 million people, Iraq 37 million people, Saudi Arabia around 28 million people and Yemen 27 million people. The countries with smallest populations in the region are Bahrain 1.3 million people, Qatar 2.2 million people, Kuwait 2.8 million people, Oman 3.2 million people and Lebanon 6.2 million people.
Some of the Middle East countries are economically world leaders such as, Qatar, Israel or U.A.E., while other countries are known for poverty and being warzones, such as Iraq or Syria.
The Middle East is home to various populations and a wide variety of cultures, history and socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, each country’s approach to health management and healthcare access differs resulting in uneven levels of healthiness among the region.
Healthcare in the Middle East countries
The strong dichotomy between the various environments across the Middle East have led patients to travel around the region for medical purposes, as some of these nations’ healthcare systems are encountering difficult situations, such as Libya’s, Egypt’s, Syria’s, Iraq’s, while others’ healthcare systems, such as U.A.E.’s, Iran’s, Israel’s and Turkey’s are well funded and managed and have become very important medical centres, being visited by patients from the whole region and all around the Globe, too.
Iraq’s healthcare structure has been also one of the most prestigious healthcare systems across the Middle East during the 1970s. But due to terrorism and war, the budget for the medical system has been cut by 90%, while after the fall of Saddam Hussein, more than 15.000 Iraqi doctors have left the country for good, in search for better and more stable countries. In 2016, there were less than 30 cardiac surgeons left in Iraq.
Public statements of Iraqi health officials show that more than 40% of the medicines are smuggled from countries such as Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, India or China. These smuggled medicines are both counterfeit and substandard drugs, but also generics and branded products that comply with the applicable legislation.