Our residential neighborhoods have been suffering from an accelerating spread of cancer over the last seven years, due to the increase in pollution, the import of colored foodstuffs, the use of chemicals in agriculture, the lack of attention to hygiene and other reasons.

Discussions and problems have increased in poor residential neighborhoods with the problem of hospitals in Baghdad accommodating this number of patients with cancer and the scarcity of medicine.

Wass community participated with some young people from those residential neighborhoods to visit the only hospital in Baghdad designated for treating cancer in order to convey these discussions to the hospital director and to show solidarity with the patients there.

The director of the hospital received a friendly community, and we discussed with it the state’s negligence towards this big problem, and we expressed the Iraqi society’s dissatisfaction with the presence of such a huge amount of pollution around us in our residential neighborhoods and the lack of medicine and hospitals designated for cancer treatment.

The director of the hospital sympathized with us and our demands, and they told us that these reports constantly reach the state, but there is no response from the state towards these problems, and that doctors work day and night and with extra working hours for free to stay with patients and treat them sometimes at their own expense.