Health Workers

In Syria, doctors have fled in droves, fearful of adding to the casualties in the country’s bloody civil war. In Pakistan, vaccinators are gunned down by militants. In Bahrain, physicians who treat protesters are thrown in jail. Despite universally recognized international law protecting medical workers in conflict situations, increasingly, the people on the front line of health care are becoming targets. At a side event of the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva today, speakers from Turkey, Bahrain, and Pakistan described attacks on healthcare workers for providing care to politically unpopular groups, or because the workers witnessed human rights violations. Other recent attacks have targeted vaccination teams and ambulances.

The Government of Norway, the Government of Switzerland, and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition invite you to a side event at the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: Attacks on Health Systems: The Need for Action by the Human Rights Council Friday, 20 September 11h00 - 13h00, Palais des Nations Room XII

At the end of 2008, Dr. Dirhem Al-Qadasi, the head of the emergency room at the Science and Technology Hospital in Sana’a, a private health care facility, was stabbed to death. Those responsible for his murder are believed to be family members of an elderly man who died while at the hospital who were seeking revenge for the man’s death. According to former patients and colleagues, the doctor had a sterling reputation. News of Al-Qadasi’s death caused a media storm and popular outrage, but no one was ever tried for the doctor’s murder.

World Humanitarian Day is dedicated to those who have lost their lives in humanitarian service and those who continue to work for humanitarian causes. It is also an occasion to draw attention to the fact that health-care personnel are often among the first to be attacked in war and other situations of violence. As a result, untold numbers of people are deprived of the care they need. This is currently one of the most serious and pressing issues of humanitarian concern.

Doctors and other healthcare workers in Turkey, and the facilities in which they work, are facing sustained and intense attacks for treating patients injured during the current civil unrest in the country. By providing emergency assistance to the injured, medical workers in Turkey are fulfilling their duty under the International Code of Medical Ethics. Had they not done so, they would have risked international condemnation, faced professional disciplinary proceedings, and violated the Turkish penal code.