Palliative Care in Iraq: Background and Improving Services

The awareness of palliative care (PC) in Iraq as a medical discipline belongs only to few years ago, it is still in the very early stages of development. The majority of Iraqi health institutions are not familiar with the terminology of PC and its concept among Iraqi people and patients is primitive or unheard. As the national program is not established yet, this awareness had not received much attention from the national health policy makers and researchers. It is limited to health care providers in oncology field, mainly pediatric oncology, along with families of patients with terminal malignancies. In the community, the strength of PC lies in the religious and cultural aspects, Iraqi people are strongly engaged with the extended family and the tribe, which provides both psychosocial and spiritual support to the patients and their families. The country is still recovering from long period of internal conflicts and political turmoil and the fragile health system is still struggling to set the priorities, while basic therapeutic and diagnostic tool with life saving measures remains the top priority. This chapter highlights the factual steps in pediatric PC in the oncology unit in Children Welfare Teaching Hospital (CWTH), Medical City in Baghdad.