Iraqi Kurdistan secures $20M+ for Hiwa Cancer Hospital in 2025

Shafaq News- Al-Sulaymaniyah

The Kurdistan Regional Government allocated about 28 billion Iraqi dinars ($21.3 million) to Hiwa Cancer Hospital in 2025, while the facility currently provides 85% of required cancer treatments and surgeries, Health Minister Saman Barzanji revealed on Tuesday.

Barzanji told a press conference that the funding covered medicines, medical supplies, and equipment, including three billion dinars ($2.3 million) for devices used daily at the Al-Sulaymaniyah hospital. The government allocated another 12 billion dinars ($9.1 million) for medicines during the first half of 2026, distributing them to inpatients and other patients receiving treatment at the facility.

Shortages of some medical supplies persist due to the Kurdistan Region’s financial and administrative crisis, he added, pushing the KRG Finance Ministry to hold talks with the federal Health Ministry to secure the hospital’s remaining requirements.

Barzanji previously told Shafaq News that the Kurdistan Region receives less than half of its required medical supplies from Baghdad and spends about seven billion dinars ($5.3 million) monthly on essential medicines for public hospitals, in addition to separate allocations for cancer and cardiac treatment centers.

Hiwa treated 5,127 cancer and blood-disorder cases in 2025, including 3,147 confirmed cancer diagnoses, with most patients referred from outside Al-Sulaymaniyah. Nearly 40% of cancer patients treated across the Kurdistan Region come from other Iraqi provinces, according to health officials.

The hospital has also opened Iraq’s first integrated cancer surgery unit and performed the country’s first major bone marrow transplant free of charge, with its transplant center treating 523 patients from across Iraq.

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