History of the Basrah Teaching Hospital

An overview of the Basrah Teaching Hospital, a partner of Giving Children Hope

Through GCH’s healthcare development program in Iraq, GCH ships regular containers of supplies and equipment to hospitals and clinics across the country. The Basrah Teaching Hospital and Medical Center is a medical institution that has partnered with Giving Children Hope and receives regular deliveries of medical aid. Below is a brief history of the hospital’s establishment.

In 1957 King Faisal II suggested to the Iraqi Construction Council that a teaching hospital should be built in Basrah prior to the establishment of a new medical college. The Iraqi Construction Council approved the king’s suggestion and issued a statement saying that “a new hospital will be built in Basrah in the near future”. The construction of the hospital began after nearly two years, in 1959. This delay was due to the 1958 revolution under the leadership of President Abdul-Karim Kasim.

The location of the hospital was planned to be by the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the area called Al-Khura (nowadays called al-Barada’iya) in the southern part of Basrah. Because of the political fluctuations in Iraq since 1958, the completion of the hospital building was unfortunately delayed for twenty years. Finally, the hospital building was completed in 1979 and opened to the public in the same year, one year before the start of the Iraq – Iran war. During the war the hospital building suffered severe damage. For that reason, in 1987 the hospital was moved from the original building on the river bank to Al-Zubair (20 kilometers away from the centre of Basrah).

At the end of the Iraq – Iran war in 1988, and after superficial maintenance had been carried out on the hospital building, the hospital was returned to its original location. A number of maintenance contracts were performed on the hospital buildings between 1988 and 1999, but none of these repairs were sufficient to bring the hospital building up to a satisfactory condition. In 1999 the International Red Cross started a two year project to repair the hospital buildings, and this work finally brought the hospital up to a condition that enabled it to serve its patients properly.