Health

Health care in Iran is divided into three categories:

• The governmental system
• The private sector
• Nongovernmental organizations (NGO)

Iran with a population of 80 million (2017), has 570 large governmental hospitals, 337 private hospitals, and more than 700 NGO health centers.

More than 90% of the people in the country have government insurance coverage, but this does not cover all medical services, so people may need to use private insurance, too. Because private insurance costs a lot, poor people cannot afford these services and suitable medical treatment.

The existence of a private health care sector has reduced waiting times for medical services and faster diagnosis of the disease; yet, this is available only to those who can pay directly or through their private insurance coverage.

Non-governmental or not-for-profit organizations help people with low income by providing affordable medical services like lab tests, X-rays, physiotherapy and para-medical services.

The health care system in Canada is a publicly funded health care system, informally called Medicare in some provinces.

A health card is issued by the Provincial Ministry of Health to everyone who enrolls for the program in the province and everyone receives the same level of care. It doesn’t matter what kind of financial status a citizen has, employment status, health or age of the citizen. Canadian Health card is available for one and all.

A long waiting period is an important disadvantage of this system. The inadequate number of family physicians, hospitals, and specialized clinics cause the diagnosis of many diseases to be postponed.

A significant number of immigrants to Canada are medical doctors, but unfortunately, the Canadian academic system does not accept them.

Most of them have a lot of medical experiences, and their countries have spent a lot of money on their education and training, while Canada pays the expenses of teaching medical students. If the Canadian government uses such ready-made forces and makes familiar them to Canadian medical system through the short-term training courses, it can save both the economy and the problem of Canada’s doctors shortage.

For example, I have more than 20 years experiences in clinical and anatomical fields of medical Pathology.

I graduated medical doctorate degree 7 years after high school and then passed a very difficult exam for accepting to the professional course of pathology. Overall, I studied for 11 years after graduation high school.

The clinical pathology is one of two branches of pathology which is about the processing of human samples like urine, blood, stool and other body fluid and secretion.

The anatomical pathology is another branch of pathology and related to the processing, examination of surgical specimens.

Macroscopic and microscopic examinations are mostly always done by a microscope, medical laboratory devices and materials which are necessary for diagnosing of diseases.

I always enjoy the laboratory working and studying medical science, but after immigration, I could not find any job related to my education. This is a common problem for all the immigrant doctors.