Iraqi president hails 'distinctive' efforts of medical staff over coronavirus
Iraqi President Barham Salih met on Tuesday at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad with Minister of Health and the Environment, Jaafar Sadiq Allawi and a certain number of the medical and health staff, the presidency said in a statement.
The World Health Organization's Representative to Iraq, Adham Ismail attended the meeting.
During the meeting, the president confirmed that "the sincere and distinguished efforts made by health and medical authorities will be remembered throughout history.
"Owing to your guidance and advice to your Iraqi brothers, we have managed to overcome what we feared, despite the limited possibilities of the health sector," he said.
"We agreed with the Minister of Health and Environment and a group of other Iraqi professionals, businessmen and banks to make a national effort outside the governmental framework to support the health and medical cadres," the president added.
He indicated that the national team worked to launch a national initiative for collecting donations, as it would be used through the Ministry of Health to support the medical staff.
The President stressed that "the battle has not yet ended, we have many challenges, and the final victory on the epidemic has not been achieved so far.
The Ministry of Health's daily directives and guidelines needs to be obligated."
He praised efforts exerted by health and medical cadres to face Coronavirus and to keep Iraqis' health and to be safe fromthis pandemic.
His Excellency confirmed that "medical and health teams faced the outbreak and offered sacrifices as well as honorable Iraqis confronted terrorism".
The President started greeting the medical staff with the applause due to their greatest role to halt the spread of COVID-19.
The Minister of Health also stressed the Ministry and the medical and health staff continue efforts to combat the outbreak and remain committed to provide all services to our people, reviewing the Ministry's actions and measures to halt the spread of this pandemic, problems and obstacles to its work and the non-compliance of some areas with the curfew imposed.
The President also heard a detailed explanation from medical staff and health officials on the developments of the outbreak and the cases of full recoveries as well as the obstacles that they are faced with.
