“We did our best to curb the virus and prevent it from reaching this level, and we did not expect the death toll to be this high,” Sabah Hawrami told Rudaw TV’s Legel Ranj program, hosted by Ranj Sangawi.
Hawrami added that one of the reasons behind the spike of cases in the Region is the economic crisis the government has experienced in tandem with the pandemic.
“We have shortcomings in treating patients due to the economic crisis and we have failed to provide good quality service,” said the official.
These comments come as some experts blame the Region’s health ministry for what they describe as a poor response to the pandemic.
The spread of the virus, a dramatic drop of oil prices and the cutting of the Region’s budget share from Baghdad has put the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in a difficult situation. It has failed to pay its civil servants in full and on time, which has caused strikes by health workers and other civil servants.
The KRG imposed several lockdowns when the virus began spreading in the Region this spring but most of the restrictions were lifted around June after several protests were held, demanding the reopening of businesses.
With those in the public sector unpaid and those in the private sector suffering massive losses from coronavirus measures, many have been left penniless.
Yad Naqishbandi, spokesperson for Hawrami’s office, told Rudaw on Monday that Sulaimani province no longer has the capacity to receive COVID-19 patients.
“Frankly speaking, the hospitals are currently packed despite the fact that some patients are dying or recovering and leaving hospitals. Yesterday, 30 people recovered but 40 others arrived on the same day … We cannot receive more people.”
The KRG’s health minister Saman Barzanji has been blamed for his response to the pandemic.
Barzanji has failed to provide medicine and oxygen to virus patients, claimed Legel Ranj guest Dr. Goran Abdullah from the UK.
“He could spread awareness among people and speak with clerics, university professors, and civil organizations,” Abdullah said of Barzanji. “He should have provided the salaries of health workers and doctors.”
“You are fighting an enemy which is parallel to Daesh,” he added, using the Arabic name for the Islamic State (ISIS).
“If a patient in Kurdistan goes to the emergency room, there are no doctors and health workers or no medicine. They leave people with no option but to buy medicine from outside [the hospitals]. Even if there is medicine, there is no oxygen.”
Dr. Bakhtiyar Kamal is an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. He warned that winter will be hard because “some people will have a flu and fail to know if it is coronavirus or not. Therefore, hospitals will be packed. If there is no plan, the situation will be very hard.”
He criticized the KRG for making patients use what he described as “unnecessary” medicine.
The first case of coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region was recorded on March 1. So far, 57,365 people have contracted the virus. Of this, 35,705 have recovered and 2,040 died, according to the latest data from the health ministry.
