Healthcare in oil-rich Iraq used to be free for its people, but years of war devastated its infrastructure. So when Iraqi forces fought the Islamic State in Mosul last year, they depended on specialist and critical care provided by Artemis hospital in Gurgaon. It has treated more than 450 Iraqi soldiers since 2014.
But then, it is not just Iraq. Eman Ahmed from Egypt got a visa for treatment in Mumbai, after Dr. Muffi Lakdawala, a bariatric surgeon urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to help.
Diplomats see this as part of India’s medical diplomacy tradition, extending today from Ethiopia to Myanmar. “Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis who went to China during the Long March, and Mahatma Gandhi’s Ambulance Corps in the Boer war inspired India to have a policy on medical diplomacy,” said former Ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen.
Afghan fighters came
In 1985, when Mujahedin fighters attacked President Babrak Karmal, the Kabul Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital worked overtime with Indian doctors, nurses and Afghan staffers.
Later, Northern Alliance fighters were in India for treatment.
Some years ago, Indian officials turned an empty building of the Tajikistan military into what is now a hospital serving the public.
