Kirkuk health authorities refuse to issue death certificate amid ongoing lawsuit

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —  A Kurdish man who was filmed handcuffed to his dying wife’s hospital bed in Kirkuk in July claims that health authorities have refused to issue a death certificate for his deceased wife amid a negligence lawsuit he filed over his wife’s death.

Mohammed Karim, who works as a teacher in Kirkuk, was handcuffed to his wife’s hospital bed at Kirkuk Public Hospital in mid-July after quarelling with staff over his wife’s care. His wife later died of COVID-19 at the hospital. 

He argued with medical staff after they took away oxygen cylinders he had bought for his wife, and later filed a negligence lawsuit against the hospital over the death of his 44-year old spouse Muna Ismael.

“Our lawyers have done their best through court because the head of Kirkuk Health directorate is not willing to give it to me at all. He directly told me ‘We are not going to give you the death certificate for your wife.’ He asked me to get a cause of death certificate instead,” Karim told Rudaw’s Rozhan Abubakr.   

Ziyad al-Jabouri, the head of Kirkuk’s health directorate, told Rudaw English that a death certificate can only be given within 24 hours of death – but that Karim can still obtain a cause of death certificate. 

The former can be obtained at the hospital in question but the latter can only be issued by a court, according to Jabouri. 

Karim told Rudaw that the court is “making excuses” in order to not give him a death certificate, adding he has requested it more than seven times. 

“There is no law to prevent them from issuing it,” he said. 

“If get a cause of death certificate, it will mean my wife died in hospital,” Karim added, saying he has been offered a death certificate in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.

Jabouri said that they have called on the health ministry to treat Karim’s case as “an exception” and give him the death certificate – with the ministry “promising to do so.”