Iraqi fights problems to practice TCM

BAGHDAD - In a two-story building that has a stylish facade and is located at a side street in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, Sabah al-Mustwfi receives patients who have resorted to traditional Chinese medicine after giving up on Western medicine due to complications and the high costs.

Mustwfi opened his clinic 20 years ago and has moved around different areas of Baghdad before recently settling in Karrada. His services range from simple TMC remedies for muscle pain, to treatment for conditions such as migraines, sciatica, chronic joint pain and obesity - even nicotine dependency.

Mustwfi graduated from Baghdad College of Medicine and practiced Western medicine until the early 1990s, when Iraq came under UN sanctions for occupying neighboring Kuwait. The severe sanctions forced Iraqi health officials to find alternative methods to overcome the medicine shortage in the country, he said.