Budding Iraqi nurses find their courage

BAGHDAD - Few countries have a more dire need of brave and skilled nurses than war-torn Iraq, and few countries make it harder for women to train and work outside the four walls of their family home.

Now, however, a determined group of young women have defied daily threats and dangers to take part in a pioneering US-led training programme that could soon serve as a model for isolated women in other conflict zones.

“You are now leaders, teachers, and role models for women of Iraq to help bring healing to a hurting nation,” US army Major Darrin Frye told a ceremony where grinning graduates received stethoscopes and white blouses.

The 17 women, aged between 18 and 45, have completed a six-week training course at a clinic on the sprawling grounds of Camp Victory, a US military complex on the western edge of the battle-scarred Iraqi capital.

One was not able to attend the entire Preparatory Iraqi Nursing Course in person.

She was warned off by thugs in her community, who threatened to beat her bloody in order to set an example to other women who dared have contact with the training team -- US and Iraqi doctors, and female military officers.

But friends brought course materials back from the base and she worked hard at home, allowing her to graduate this week along with her classmates.

“Our neighbours were against us because it was an American programme,” said another graduate, Amal Hadi Abbas, who scored 28 out of 29 on the final exam.

The taster course does not turn out qualified professional nurses but covers a variety of skills so graduates can assist doctors or midwives.

The women learn to take temperatures and blood pressures, control infections and give artificial respiration or cardiac massage. They study medication safety, female and community health issues and primary microbiology.

Afterwards, some will continue their training, but all have already learned something important in today’s lawless, violent, ultraconservative Iraq -- they’ve gained confidence and self-reliance.

Three sisters from the Abboud family took the course despite criticism and verbal threats, while Eman Ahmad, 26, came every day with her attentive eight-month-old daughter Tabarak, who got a diploma of her own.

“They were so brave to come,” said Ahlam Turki, an Iraqi-American doctor who came back to Iraq in 2005 and helped build the programme.

So pleased are the trainers that they’re planning a satellite programme with the support of a South Korean unit based in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil in the autonomous Kurdish region. Other Iraqi centers are to follow.

Eventually, the “I” in the acronym PINC will cease to mean ”Iraqi” and become “International” as the courses spread to Liberia and Nicaragua.

Most of the women on the course left formal schooling at 13 or 14, and as the city plunged into sectarian carnage in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein much of the country’s educational infrastructure collapsed.

“They defied the odds on the outside” to get a taste of what nursing really is, said Air Force Captain Samantha Elmore, who with Turki and Frye was one of the volunteer programmes’ pillars.

Five tentative students were quickly joined by others and within 10 days the program had to draw up a waiting list.

Women too timid to speak in the beginning bloomed into confident, curious students who were proud of their accomplishment, Elmore said.

“This is proof we did something for ourselves and our village,” said Naima Abboud, 34, the eldest of the three sisters, though she added that neighbours “do not approve of Iraqi women having dealings with Americans.”

They also had to overcome a stigma in Iraq, where nurses are considered by some as women of loose moral character. Executed dictator Saddam Hussein was quoted in a programme brochure as saying he would “do without nurses.”

The country now needs an estimated 60,000 of them to staff new and refurbished clinics being built across Iraq, providing a job opportunities for many women and healthcare for deprived communities.

Most here wanted to earn nursing credentials, including some who already worked as US interpreters, while a few sought skills to care for elderly relatives or friends.

Many women dressed in traditional Islamic black abayas and all but two wore hijabs for the ceremony, which was held after their final exam in a modest building spruced up with a few pink balloons.

Brightly dressed kids darted from laps to a small playground outside, but came quickly when chocolate cake and soft drinks materialized to mark the occasion.

Ahmad, a shy mother of three who nonetheless beamed as Tabarak passed from one pair of arms to another, said she looked forward to learning more in the next course.

Asked if she hoped Tabark would also consider nursing one day, her smile widened further and she replied: “No, I’d like her to become a doctor.”

 AFP