Pakistan’s miracle medics save lives in Iraq

NAJAF, Iraq: As Doctor Muneer Amanullah and Doctor Babar Sultan took turns to perform a mid-day surgery on a pre teen-aged child at the main children’s cardiac hospital in Najaf, Iraq’s well known spiritual city, their focus was two folds; to take their patient successfully through one of the most complex surgeries in medical science while also training Iraq’s young doctors and paramedics to single handedly perform the task in future.

The two doctors Amanullah, a surgeon, and Sultan, a paediatric cardiologist from Karachi, returned home just in time to observe Ramazan, following their third mission to Iraq since early 2021. The doctors and other members of an 11-member medical team from Pakistan have together performed surgeries on children with congenital cardiac ailments that have posed major risks to their lives unless tackled through timely interventions.

Cardiac ailments among children are just one of the many challenges faced by Iraq, a country heavily damaged in deadly wars in recent decades, notably the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s and the US invasion later. The procedures performed by the Pakistani doctors addressed just one of the many challenges across a country where scars of recent wars are plentiful. As young children and widows scrounge for food and basic needs, scores of unemployed men desperately tap in to one source after another looking for jobs. Many of the roughly 40 thousand children across Iraq with congenital cardiac conditions, come from impoverished families.

The team members from Pakistan offered their services without charging a fee for their services though other costs incurred on the surgeries were supported by Iraq’s ‘Al Hawaij business group’ in partnership with the Imam Ali holy shrine in Najaf, the final resting place of Imam Ali ibne Abi Talib A.S., the fourth caliph of Islam. “We are here to fill an important gap. Many hospitals in Iraq were closed [as conflict engulfed the country],” said Hadi Askari, a well-respected Pakistani businessman of ‘Al Hawaij business group’ who has led past efforts to sponsor Iraqi children for congenital cardiac surgeries in Karachi too. But now, sponsors of this noble campaign are keen to oversee procedures within Iraq -- a mission that they say will contribute towards creating the human resource in that country to undertake complicated medical procedures.

Doctor Amanullah, who has led previous medical teams for similar surgeries to war ravaged Afghanistan, is no stranger to the challenges surrounding conflict-stricken countries. “We had [prior] experience of a war zone [Afghanistan]. One of our biggest challenges is of language [barrier of communicating with local population],” he said. “All those who could, have left. Still there are adequate doctors and nurses [in Iraq] which gives us an opportunity [to rebuild pediatric cardiac resources]” he added.

The team’s focus was to train those who still remain in Iraq to independently carry out surgeries on children with congenital cardiac issues. The two doctors – Amanullah and Sultan – took turns through surgical procedures, sharing the burden of work between the surgery and keeping the heart function of their patient stable. “There has been a brain drain from here [Iraq]” said Doctor Sultan adding, “Our ethos is not just to carry out procedures, it is also to train”.

Adjoining the operation theatre, the recovery room and ICU or Intensive Care Unit wrapped in one, showed another rare aspect of this mission. As under-aged children were rolled out after each surgery, the visiting team members from Pakistan carefully assist each attendant, typically a parent of a recovering patient, to help them cope with their anxieties, at least till the patient are in a recovery mode. That involved preparing for a host of chores from post surgery medications to necessary safeguards in daily lives. “The management of these patients require time sensitive decisions. They need people [doctors and paramedics] with different skills to take care of a baby,” said Doctor Kalbe Abbas, a critical care physician who was among the eleven member team.

As the team closed its latest mission in Iraq, their next frontier could well be that of providing a similar service in Pakistan where according to Askari, the respected Pakistani businessman, there are approximately 75 thousand children with congenital cardiac conditions. “This work in Iraq is very important but there’s a lot of work waiting to be done in Pakistan,” he said adding that a future cardio vascular institute in Karachi could help meet the gap for Pakistan’s under resourced families who are unable to afford the treatment on their own.