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At least 700 healthcare workers, patients died in attacks since December 2017
More than 700 health care workers and patients have died since December 2017 and more than 2,000 have been injured in attacks on health facilities, according to a three- year analysis by the UN World Health Organization (WHO), released on Tuesday.
The Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care from 2018 to 2020, recorded data from 17 emergency-affected countries and fragile settings.
These included Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Myanmar, Central African Republic and Somalia
“We are deeply concerned that hundreds of health facilities have been destroyed or closed, health workers killed and injured, and millions of people denied the healthcare they deserve,” said Altaf Musani, Director of the Health Emergencies Interventions, WHO, at a virtual press briefing hosted by UN Geneva.
The WHO initiative has three main pillars of work: the systematic collection of evidence of attacks, advocacy for the end of such attacks and the promotion of good practices for protecting health care.
Giving details of the report’s findings, Mr. Musani, said that “one out of six incidents have led to a patient or health worker’s loss of life in 2020”.
Health workers were impacted the most, he added, as they represented “two-thirds of all attacks in 2018, 2019 and 50 per cent of all recorded incidents in 2020”.
The report warned that the impact of attacks on health care went well beyond endangering health providers, especially in light of the ongoing COVID-19 response. “Their impact reverberates on health workers’ mental health and willingness to report to work, on the communities’ willingness to seek health care and also drastically reduces resources for responding to health crises, among others,” the WHO official said.
The “ripple effect of a single incident is huge” and has “long-term consequences for the health system as whole”, Mr. Musani insisted, before calling on all parties in conflicts to ensure safe working spaces for the delivery of health care services and safe access to health care, free from violence, threat or fear.
“One attack is an attack too many,” he said.
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