Priced out of healthcare, some Iraqis turn to natural remedies

FILE PHOTO: Iraqi women buy traditional herbal medicines at a shop in Baghdad, Iraq June 11, 2023. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - When a pharmacist in Iraq told Umm Mohammed her prescription for a skin ailment would cost about 800,000 dinars ($611), she turned to cheaper natural remedies as some of her relatives had done.

In a herbal remedy shop, the 34-year-old mother-of-two found a treatment eight times cheaper. "Pharmacies are a disaster at the moment, poor people turn to medicinal herbs because of the prices," she said. "Who can afford this? Should one die? So you turn to medicinal herbs."