Iraqi government fails to address rise in autism
Despite signs of growing rates of autism in Iraq, there is little governmental interest in the topic, with no specialized centers for treating autistic children outside the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Doctors in Iraq have limited capabilities when it comes to diagnosing autism or treating it properly, whether using traditional or modern methods, and seem unconcerned about the dangerous repercussions of this disease and its rising rates.
Dr. Khaldoun Hamid al-Hafiz, a pediatrician who specializes in treating neurological disorders, including epilepsy and autism, confirmed this unfortunate reality in a phone call with Al-Monitor. Experienced with diagnosing and treating autism specifically — he worked in several British centers specializing in the treatment of autism — he's trying to support the efforts of the community centers in Baghdad that recently opened their doors to autistic children.
Hafiz indicated that Iraqi pediatricians’ approach to treating autistic children leaves much to be desired. There are no specialized pediatric psychiatric clinics. Instead, the children are treated in clinics for adults. Hafiz said he discovered that many of the children classified as autistic proved to have other psychological disturbances upon examination in his clinic. He also noted that these children had been taking medications for years, dramatically worsening their health. Special diets prescribed in the course of their treatment also negatively affected their mental and physical growth.
Hafiz told Al-Monitor that he felt distressed and might leave Iraq and return to Britain at any moment. He had initially gone to Iraq to conduct studies about autism, after finding out about the rising rates of the condition there and the lack of medical resources to treat it. He had hoped that the country would welcome his ambition to open specialized centers to conduct research about the disorder, its classification, rates and treatment methods, and to stop its spread. However, he was shocked to find that none of the governmental institutions — not the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education nor committees in the parliament — were interested in the topic and its dangerous repercussions on society.
