Iraqi committee to suppress Ashraf refuses four cancer patients access to specialist doctors

NCRI – On Thursday morning, September 23, upon the order of the committee tasked to suppress Ashraf residents, the Iraqi forces stopped translators to accompany four cancer patients to see specialists at a hospital in Baghdad. Since none of the patients could speak English or Arabic, they were forced to cancel their appointments with specialist physicians. This is while the appointments had been made long time ago and necessary coordination were made a week in advance with Ashraf hospital management for the patients and their translators and they were finalized on September 21 and 22. However, Ashraf hospital management informed the patients last night that upon the orders of the committee, they could not be accompanied with their translators.

In another inhumane act, the Iraqi forces cancelled eye surgery on two Ashraf residents due on September 20 in Baghdad without offering any reason or explanation; they were returned back to Ashraf without any treatment. This is while these medical appointments had been made months in advance. It is worth noting that Ashraf residents shoulder themselves the costs of all the medical treatments and related movements completely.

By stressing that inhuman siege on Ashraf and preventing its residents from having access to medical services in various parts of Iraq has led to deterioration of the state of many patients where some of them can no longer be cured, the Iranian Resistance calls on the United Nations Secretary General, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Iraq, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN special rapporteur on the right to health and other relevant international bodies to urgently intervene to lift all restrictions on Ashraf residents’ access to specialized hospital facilities and to other medical services.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 24, 2010