"On average we admit one such patient a day. We suspect most of the women of suicide. Only once did I see a young boy say he attempted suicide. He wanted to marry a girl and they refused," he said.
Flaying her heavily bandaged arms around a face horribly disfigured with raw burns, 39-year-old Shawnim Mahmud has spent two days screaming in agony after being brought in following what she said was a cooking accident.
"She has 79 percent burns. Even if a cooking machine exploded, it doesn't cause these kind of burns. There's no chance she'll live," says Tawfiq.
In the next bed lies Sirwa Hassan, a 27-year-old mother of three from a village near the Iranian border, tubes running in and out of her nose, barely whimpering as her 86 percent burns slowly kill her.
"She said it was kerosene but kerosene will not make this kind of explosion. I don't expect her to live," Tawfiq said, gazing down at her bandaged feet, burnt shoulders and flesh, desperately sad eyes watching him in silence.
Anna Ahmed Mohammed, a physiotherapist at the burns unit and one of the few whom patients confide in, fears suicide is increasing as the economic situation deteriorates in Iraq and life gets more difficult.
"There are more economic problems because of the war, especially in Sulaimaniyah because more people from the south come to live here. Salaries aren't enough to buy what you need. Prices have gone up," she said.
"Here the men always rule their wives. Sometimes it's unbearable and they can't take it any longer. Fire is so easy. You can find it at home. Everyone has kerosene at home and a match," she said.
Narmen Rostam, 16, has been in the hospital for 30 days with burn injuries.
Sitting in her tartan hospital pyjamas, she sobs on and off and admits to being depressed, yet she professes no sympathy for those attempting suicide.
"They are very foolish," she said. "They have no mind in their brain. We used to tell them you'll be suffering this pain now and in the other life."
Medics cannot be sure that her own story about a cooking accident is true.
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