Assessment of Governmental-Funded International Referral Program to Treat Patients

Abstract

In Iraq, international referral programs have been adopted, governed by specific inclusion measures. Basra government has adopted an international referral program as a solution to local medical problems, which targeted several countries, mainly Turkey. Since, there has been no party evaluated this program, this study was conducted to assess an international medical referral program. To conduct the study, the assessors used the database at Basra Government offices to obtain the relevant information to be used as a reference to improve the program in the future. The total number of patients was 833, 53% of them were males and 59.42% were children. After re-assessment of medical conditions of the referred patients, 94.8% of the patients were managed successfully, 2.1% of them did not need surgery, in 1.1% the disease stage was inoperable, 0.6% were not fit from health point of view to be operated on, and 0.4% died. Comparative assessments of the program with similar programs implemented in other countries and in Iraq need to be conducted. The assessment showed a high treatment success rate among the referred patients, which can arrow to that there were some gaps in the Iraqi health system in the fields of pediatric CVS diseases, bone marrow and liver transplant and ophthalmology should be fixed. These gaps include shortage in qualified resources in Iraq.