A white coat, no file in the directorate and two official accounts of who spotted her first: the Al-Hakim Teaching Hospital impostor in Amarah, and Baghdad's six-year 'gynaecologist'

Iraq's wider problem with bought and forged degrees is recorded elsewhere on this site. In August 2024 the Parliamentary Health and Environment Committee and the Ministry of Health launched a joint task force against unlicensed medical practice, according to 964media. Provincial health directorates hold the files of everyone who works in their hospitals, and in July 2025 the absence of such a file exposed a woman on the wards of a teaching hospital in Maysan.

In a statement reported by 964media on 7 July 2025, Maysan police said a woman had been detained inside Al-Hakim Teaching Hospital in Amarah, in Maysan province, wearing a white coat and acting as a member of staff. The provincial police chief, Major General Lafta Fakhir al-Muhammadawi, said Facilities Protection officers had become suspicious of her and detained her. Hospital administrators confirmed she had no connection to the institution, and police said she had been referred to the judicial authorities.

The Maysan Health Directorate's own statement, issued on the evening of 6 July and reported by Aljeebal, said the hospital administration had been the first to suspect her, that she was neither an employee nor a trainee, that she had no job records or files with the directorate, and that legal action would follow. It called the impersonation a serious legal violation. The two official accounts, both carried by Aljeebal, did not quite match: the directorate said she had posed as a pharmacist, the police said a doctor, and each credited a different unit with spotting her.

According to 964media, on 17 January 2026 Baghdad's Rusafa police said they had arrested a woman who had posed as a gynaecologist and cosmetic doctor for six years using forged identification documents and receipts, and who admitted opening unlicensed clinics. On 2 February 2026, the same outlet reported, Baghdad police arrested a Syrian national in Husseiniyat al-Maamel for impersonating a dentist and running an unlicensed dental clinic. Inside a hospital, staff and patients read the white coat as the credential, and the only check that worked in Amarah was administrative: did this person have a file. In a private clinic nobody asks even that until a complaint reaches the police.

The lesson travels beyond Iraq. A coat, a nameplate or a confident manner is not a qualification, and identity papers can be forged as easily as a coat can be bought. Before paying anyone for treatment, an internship placement or a hospital job abroad, ask the hospital administration or the health directorate whether the person has a record with them, and ask for a licence number you can check against the regulator's register. A legitimate doctor or institution has a file. An impostor relies on nobody asking.