Already a troubled system, Iraqi medical care has fallen to the brink of collapse since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago..... Specialists are hard to find. At one point, Baghdad — a city of more than 5 million — had no neurosurgeon, said Dr. Hussein al-Hilli, director of the Ibn Albitar Hospital in Baghdad.... Like so many areas of life in Iraq, the health care crisis is vast and complex, and there is no quick solution to improve conditions for doctors and patients.

The state's largest public hospital is near bankruptcy, struggling to pay its bills and overrun with faulty budget strategies.... Grady treats the lion's share of metro Atlanta's poor. In 2000 alone indigent care cost Grady $172.9 million, according to Agwunobi's report....

The Iraqi Interior Ministry has ordered police to round up beggars, homeless and mentally disabled people from Baghdad's streets so insurgents can't use them as suicide bombers.... The people detained in the Baghdad sweep will be taken to social welfare institutions and psychiatric hospitals that can provide shelter and care for them, Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

ATLANTA — A ban on panhandling near downtown Atlanta's (search) tourist attractions was approved by the City Council (search) on Monday, despite hundreds of protesters who called the measure an attack on the poor.... the plan — approved 12-3 — sparked opposition from activists for the poor and civil rights groups, who complained the ban would unfairly affect black males....

Power failures and maintenance have disrupted running water supplies to almost half of the capital, Baghdad, home to nearly 6 million people.... A Baghdad Municipality source said the project supplying drinking water to Rasafa, the eastern half of Baghdad, was temporarily idle.... The source, refusing to be named, said running water supplies may not resume for a few days.