Health Care in Danger

Health Care in Conflict: A Doctor's Perspective

Friday, May 1, 2015
Providing or seeking health care in a conflict zone is a perilous undertaking. Every year health workers are kidnapped, threatened, tortured, and killed. Hospitals and clinics are targeted and bombed. Patients are shot. In Syria alone, 187 health facilities have been attacked since March 2011, and 615 health workers were killed—141 of them by torture and execution. One doctor has made health care in conflict the center of his work.

Egypt: Experts gather to tackle violence against health–care workers and facilities

Thursday, December 18, 2014
Cairo (ICRC) – Today, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Egyptian Red Crescent, in cooperation with Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population, held a conference for around 100 practitioners, experts and government officials to raise awareness of the serious implications of violence against health-care workers and facilities and to promote respect and protection for health services working in conflict or other emergency situations.

Health Care and Violence: The Need for Effective Protection

Thursday, September 25, 2014
Violence against health-care workers and facilities, medical vehicles and patients during armed conflict and other emergencies is one of the most serious challenges of humanitarian concern in the world today. Violent acts, which limit access to health-care services for those most in need and disrupt health-care systems, have severe immediate and long-term consequences. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has highlighted the alarming scale of the problem.