"I spent two days looking for a doctor or a private clinic when my son was sick last month, but was in vain," complained Muwafaq Muhammed, a resident in Baghdad.

As violence and sectarian strife boiling over in much of Iraq, prompting an exodus of individuals from professional class, it is not easy today for many local residents in Baghdad to find a doctor.

Muhammed, a 50-year-old chief engineer, finally had to buy some medicine in a small pharmacy, because most of doctors in his neighborhood and nearby ones had left the violence-plagued capital and he was left with no other choice.

In Baghdad today, Muwafaq's son is by no means the only patient that has no access to doctors, who are systematically being pushed out of the capital along with tens of thousands of residents due to rampant violence.

Last month, an anonymous handwritten letter came to a main cardiac hospital in Baghdad threatening doctors to leave their jobs immediately, a health official said on condition of anonymity.

Four surgeons and six senior cardiologists stopped their work and some of them chose to leave the country, the official added.

Several months ago, the director of another hospital, Dr. Abdullah Sahab, was gunned down while he was heading for the office.

Such death threats and bloodshed are prompting many doctors in Baghdad to leave for other safe neighborhoods or provinces or even other countries, such as neighboring Syria and Jordan.

As for residents still living in Baghdad, they have to turn to other unprofessional ones for medical treatments.

In recent months, Nadhum Salim, a 45-year-old unemployed veterinary, has become well-known in his neighborhood, as many people came to him for help, but not for their domestic animals.

"Once it is late at night, my neighbor came to me in hurry, asking me to go to his house because his wife was delivering a baby," Nadhum said.

"Although I am trained on animals, I have to help her. This is a new and hard experiment," Nadhum said.

Um Muhammed, a 42-year-old housewife in western neighborhood of Khadraa, now became a midwife. She said she learned it by herself and once saved a pregnant woman's life.

"It is easy. I am a woman. Remember," she replied, when asked about how she learned to assist women in their childbirth.

According to a Health Ministry official, some pregnant women also chose to leave Baghdad and gave birth in clinics in other cities or provinces.

Besides doctors, many teachers, engineers, lawyers, shop owners and so on are also leaving Baghdad, which makes lives of those still living here even harder.

"I remember George W. Bush said in 2003 that one of the big achievement was the return of jubilant exiled Iraqis to their country after the fall of (deposed President) Saddam (Hussein)," Abdul Karim al-Rubaie, a retired lawyer said.

But now there are so many Iraqis leaving the war-torn country, al-Rubaie said ironically.

"Maybe it is time for me to leave and find a stable life somewhere else?" he wondered.

Source: Xinhua