Erbil to Digitize Maternity Hospital, Health Chief Says

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In the latest and one of the most significant steps in a sweeping, region-wide effort to modernize and enhance healthcare services, the Maternity Hospital in Erbil is set to be fully digitized, a move that will streamline patient care, improve efficiency, and create a comprehensive digital record for every mother and child who passes through its doors.

The announcement, made on Monday by Dr. Dlovan Mohammed, the Director General of Health for Erbil, is a key component of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) ambitious Ninth Cabinet agenda to transform public services.

Dr. Mohammed praised the continuous support of the government for this "important project" and highlighted a series of other remarkable achievements that are elevating the standard of care across the province, including the recent attainment of prestigious international ISO certification for several key medical departments.

In a press conference on Monday, Dr. Mohammed shed light on the achievements and ongoing needs of the health sector in the capital governorate. He began by expressing his sincere gratitude to the KRG's Ninth Cabinet for its dedicated focus on healthcare, which has included the provision of a special budget for the sector.

However, he also issued a call for broader societal and institutional support, emphasizing the immense scale and complexity of the mission.

"Despite this support, the health sector is a broad service sector and needs the cooperation of all parties, especially governmental and non-governmental organizations," he stated, a clear appeal for a collaborative, whole-of-society approach to building a more resilient and effective healthcare system.

It was in this context of partnership that Dr. Mohammed announced the start of the implementation phase for the digitization of the Maternity Hospital, a project that is being undertaken with the support of a key collaborator.

He specifically announced that "Shwan Zrari is our collaborator and supporter in this important project," highlighting the crucial role of private and public partnerships in driving these modernization efforts.

The digitization of the Maternity Hospital is not an isolated initiative but is part of a much larger, strategic vision to create a fully integrated, digital healthcare ecosystem in the Kurdistan Region.

As Dr. Mohammed has previously detailed to Kurdistan24, this long-term vision aims to create a comprehensive digital profile for every patient, effectively creating a unified and lifelong digital health record that can be accessed across different hospitals and health centers.

This system, which has already been successfully implemented in Erbil's Blood Bank Directorate, as well as in Pirmam Hospital, Rizgari Hospital, and the Thalassemia Center, is designed to eliminate cumbersome paper-based routines, provide real-time data for health officials, improve logistical efficiency, and significantly reduce operational costs.

The successful digitalization of the Blood Bank, for example, has connected all public and private hospitals in Erbil to a central database, allowing for real-time monitoring of blood inventory and enabling swift public appeals for donations when supplies run low.

The application of this same model to a high-volume, critical facility like the Maternity Hospital is expected to yield immense benefits, from streamlining patient admissions and tracking medical histories to improving the management of resources and enhancing the overall quality of care for mothers and newborns.

Beyond this technological leap forward, Dr. Mohammed also announced a series of significant achievements that underscore the rising quality of healthcare services in the province.

He proudly stated that the directorate has "been able to obtain the ISO certificate for several important departments." This prestigious international certification, which is a globally recognized benchmark for quality management and operational excellence, has been awarded to the General Laboratory Directorate, the Blood Bank, and the Cancer Center at Rizgari Hospital.

The attainment of ISO certification is a rigorous process that requires institutions to meet a stringent set of standards, and its achievement is a powerful external validation of the high quality of services being provided in these key departments.

These specific achievements in Erbil are a microcosm of a much broader, region-wide "health revolution" being driven by the KRG's Ninth Cabinet under the leadership of Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.

This multi-pronged effort is focused on expanding infrastructure, introducing advanced medical technologies, and ensuring that high-quality care is accessible to all citizens.

The commitment to infrastructure is evident in the construction of 12 new hospitals and the renovation of 18 health centers across the Kurdistan Region in the past four years alone, including a new 100-bed hospital in Shiladze and specialized centers for thalassemia and kidney dialysis in Akre, projects designed to decentralize care and bring services closer to rural communities.

Just last month, Prime Minister Barzani himself inaugurated a new, modern Pediatric Hospital in Zakho, a facility built to the highest international standards. At the opening ceremony, he declared that the region's children should "never need to go elsewhere" for treatment, a powerful articulation of the government's strategic goal of creating comprehensive and self-sufficient local medical services.

This commitment extends to providing the most advanced treatments available, even when they are not yet available within the region.

In a deeply humanitarian initiative personally directed by the Prime Minister, the KRG has launched a major program to send 140 thalassemia patients abroad for life-saving bone marrow transplant surgeries, with all costs covered by the government.

The second group of 40 patients was dispatched for treatment just this month. This program not only provides a permanent cure for many patients but also contributes to the long-term growth of local expertise as patients and doctors bring back valuable knowledge and experience.

The government is also actively working to attract top-tier medical talent back to the region. The renowned Kurdish neurologist Dr. Bzhar Najjar, for example, has returned from Sweden to introduce advanced treatments for Parkinson's disease, with the aim of making Kurdistan a regional hub for neurological care.

At the same time, the KRG is investing in local, life-sustaining facilities that have a profound and immediate impact on the lives of citizens. The new government-run Kidney Dialysis Center in Koya, for instance, has performed four thousand free sessions in its first 18 months, ending the grueling and costly journeys that patients once had to endure to receive essential treatment. One patient, who had previously paid 300,000 dinars for a single session at a private hospital, now receives his care completely free of charge.

This holistic and service-oriented approach, which combines large-scale infrastructure projects, cutting-edge technology, advanced international treatments, and accessible local care, is the hallmark of the Ninth Cabinet's health agenda.

The digitization of the Erbil Maternity Hospital is the latest step in this comprehensive and ambitious journey, a journey that is steadily and systematically building a healthier, more resilient, and more modern Kurdistan.