Shafaq News/ "Panay Kar Organization for Protecting employees from (comapines)" ( POPEC) accused health offices, organizations, and websites of taking advantage of patients, especially children, when the latter seek treatment abroad. 

In a press conference held in the city of al-Sulaymaniyah, the head of the organization, Asu Muhammad, said, "upon our investigation of the conditions of patients abroad and obtaining some information from doctors there, we detected an exploitation of the patients' health conditions to obtain fictional prices."

He added that this matter pushed his organization to submit a project to the Regional Ministry of Health and those concerned with the matter to adopt the issue of patients traveling outside the region, especially newborns, for treatment and establish a correct mechanism to prevent exploiting them by unofficial actors working in the Kurdistan Region. 

Mohammed added, "according to our data, 18 cases per month travel outside the region for treatment. India is in the first destination, and  Iran comes in the second," noting, "disease mongering, examining patients outside hospitals, and taking samples from them is illegal."

" Most of the planes are not equipped with special seats and oxygen supplies. Such equipment are a subject of international health standards and mandatory on every plane."