Conflict

Never having been to Syria, or to an active conflict zone, it is hard for me to fully imagine the types of atrocities that have occurred over the past year. I write this blog post from my comfortable air-conditioned office in downtown Washington DC, and I cannot fully fathom the horrific conditions that Syrians face each day living through a civil war. The graphic images and tear-inducing stories of families being torn apart, children dying in the crossfire, and injured civilians unable to seek proper medical care are hard to digest. The US Government and the international community are faced with a challenging decision of whether or not to intervene with the efforts of the Syrian rebels to oppose the Assad regime.

In her address to the 66th World Health Assembly in Geneva on May 20, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan spoke about the “deeply troubled times” we live in and referenced “assaults on health personnel and health care facilities in conflict situations,” which the World Health Organization condemns “in the strongest possible terms.”

The law says hospitals, ambulances and health-care workers must be protected and should never be targeted as they carry out their regular duties. This is often far from the reality. Worldwide, the lack of safe access to health care is causing untold suffering to millions of people. Through the voices of doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and patients, this film shows the human cost of violence against health-care workers and facilities.

Few telephone calls can be as portentous as the one Mumtaz Begum, 35, received on 15 March 2011. At the time, it sounded like just another call from a supervisor to a health worker inviting her to a meeting the next morning about a forthcoming vaccination campaign. As it turned out, Ms Begum and 16 other lady health workers (LHWs), as they are known locally, were to become pawns in the hunt for the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden. They have since been living under constant fear of attacks, have been called traitors by some and have lost their jobs.