Doctors

Dr. Annie Sparrow speaks about the ongoing attrition and targeting of Syria’s doctors. Syria once had one of the best-developed healthcare systems in the Arab world. But as the war wears on, millions of civilians find themselves in desperate need of medical care.

“Working in a field hospital is like death,” a surgeon told us two weeks ago in Turkey, where more than two dozen Syrian doctors and other health workers had come for training. As if treating victims of the Syrian Army’s weapon of choice, the barrel bomb, wasn’t enough, they themselves were often victims of those same terrible devices.

As if you didn’t already think Doctors Without Borders had its hands full with the Ebola crisis unfolding in West Africa, the organization recently released a series of videos and photographs covering the group’s work in and around Syria. The series, “The Reach of War: A Day in the Life of the Syrian Conflict,” offers a glimpse into the activities that the organization conducts on a daily basis to aid refugees and the war-wounded in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan.

Health workers and patients face extraordinary risks in today’s armed conflicts. Part I of the International Review of the Red Cross’s thematic issue on violence against health care focuses on patterns of attacks, based on results from data collection and field studies. The issue also outlines the legal and ethical frameworks that apply to the provision of health care.

There is war in Gaza again. At this time, it seems like heavy smoke is covering the area, the media, consciousness, and the entire future. But one thing can be already stated with certainty: the casualties of this war have already paid the price. Its dead have already died; its wounded will go on to contend with the pain and trauma for the rest of their lives. As health and medical professionals, Jews and Arabs, our position is no more moral than that of anyone else, but by dint of our positions and our ongoing work, our point of view is different.