Hiwa Hospital, the largest cancer treatment center in the city of Sulaimani, has been struggling with severe shortages and heavy debt for well over two years. Most of the hospital's medical devices are broken and no money has been allocated for repairs, causing cancer patients heavily reliant on the hospital's support tremendous suffering.
Rukhosh Yassin, 38, and a mother of four, has suffered from cancer for five years and has undergone numerous surgeries. The hospital can only provide five out of 12 injections prescribed by her doctors for cancer treatment, resulting in her and her husband making dire sacrifices to ensure her treatment. Her injections cost $3,000, an amount seen as unaffordable by her family.
"I am very comfortable with my leg. My relatives come to help me. I can no longer work and my request is to have these injections provided for me," Yassin told Rudaw's Hunar Hamid, lamenting that her leg will require amputation should she fail to acquire the injections.
Nariman Mohammad, her husband, is a Peshmerga. He had to resort to selling their residence and his car in order to raise funds for his wife's cancer treatment. He said that he cannot afford to pay for her injections and expressed distress about their future.
"Every 21 days, I have to pay $3,000 for injections, and I can't afford it. I am a Peshmerga and it's too much for me, alongside rent and my children's expenses. In addition to the injections, I also pay 400,000 to 500,000 IQD for tests and scans," Mohammad said sorrowfully.
The family has been forced to withdraw all four children from school due to a lack of finances, with Yassin's situation having pushed them to the brink.
The injection required for Yassin and other cancer patients is called Pembrolizumab, and Hiwa Hospital needs 700 million Iraqi dinars monthly to supply patients with the injection. In total, the required budget for the hospital to care for its patients is more than 1.5 billion dinars per month.
In addition to Yassin, more than 100 cancer patients in Hiwa Hospital require the same type of injection, but it has not been available for six months. The hospital also serves cancer patients from outside the Kurdistan Region's provinces, and its managers say the Iraqi government should intervene to reverse the hospital's situation.
"As much as it's the responsibility of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to provide services to Hiwa Hospital and other cancer facilities in the Kurdistan Region, it's an equal responsibility of the Iraqi government," a hospital manager said.
