Health Care

In early December, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution on “global health and foreign policy.” As the title suggests, it was a bit of a grab bag, covering issues such as vaccines, strengthening health systems, and Ebola. But the resolution also included the General Assembly’s strongest statement yet on the issue of attacks on health workers, facilities, and patients, and called on governments to act to ensure health workers and patients are safe and facilities protected from attack.

The World Medical Association has expressed its extreme concern to the Iraqi Prime Minister about “worrying health conditions” in Camp Liberty, the former United States military installation in Baghdad, now being used to house the members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran who previously resided in Camp Ashraf. ‘According to testimonies and reports from human rights organisations the basic rights of the 2700 residents—such as access to physicians and medicine, the confidentiality of physician-patient relationship or the right of patients to have interpreter and accompanying nurses when needed—are frequently violated.'

Representatives from Doctors Without Borders just back from a mission to Iraq, report conditions in that country are grim. They say their medical activities are focused mainly in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq because they have no access to territories seized by the militant group Islamic State.

"The Muslim and ethnic Rakhine communities are both suffering the long-term effects of violence. Access to essential health care and clean water has been seriously affected, as has the capacity to earn a livelihood," said Enrique Ochoa, head of the ICRC’s office in Sittwe. Since resuming its programmes in May, the organization has been tackling a broad range of problems faced by both communities.

The situation for Afghans, as well as for aid workers, remains precarious, but aid workers keep implementing projects for the Afghan people. Insecurity represents a major challenge in Afghanistan for civilians and aid workers. Indiscriminate attacks, military operations affecting civilians as well as health providers, and overall instability were on the rise in the six first months of 2014.