Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
The Nation's Health
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW
  • My alerts
The Nation's Health

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • Follow The Nation's Health on Twitter
  • Follow APHA on Twitter
  • Visit APHA on Facebook
  • Follow APHA on Youtube
  • Follow APHA on Instagram
  • Follow The Nation's Health RSS feeds
NewsWeb-only News

Online-only: Attacks on global health workers obstruct care, put millions at risk worldwide

Teddi Dineley Johnson
The Nation's Health October 2011, 41 (8) E40;
Teddi Dineley Johnson
  • Search for this author on this site

Violence against health workers and facilities causes millions of people around the globe to go without needed care, a recent international report finds.

Wounded and sick people are sometimes denied effective health care because hospitals are damaged by weapons or fighters, ambulances are hijacked and health workers are threatened, kidnapped, injured or killed, according to the report. Such deliberate assaults on global health workers, facilities and emergency vehicles obstruct care, violate international laws protecting wounded people during armed conflicts and represent one of the world’s most serious humanitarian challenges, according to “Health Care in Danger.”

Released in July by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the report draws on health care data from 16 countries where the organization is operational. The data — describing 655 violent incidents — were collected between July 2008 and December 2010.

“Violence against health care facilities and personnel must end,” Yves Daccord, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement. “It’s a matter of life and death. The human cost is staggering. Civilians and fighters often die from their injuries simply because they are prevented from receiving timely medical assistance.”

According to the report, 33 percent of the violent incidents studied, or 216 of 655 events, were committed by members of a country’s police or military forces. About 37 percent of the violent events were committed by armed groups that are not part of a state or country’s police or military forces.

Violence that prevents the delivery of health care is one of the most urgent, yet overlooked, humanitarian tragedies, Daccord said.

“Hospitals in Sri Lanka and Somalia have been shelled, ambulances in Libya shot at, paramedics in Colombia killed and wounded people in Afghanistan forced to languish for hours in vehicles held up in checkpoint queues,” he said. “The issue has been staring us in the face for years. It must end.”

Countries that have suffered long periods of conflict have the lowest numbers of health workers, according to the report. For example, countries in the United Nations Security Council have, on average, 28 doctors and 56 nurses per 10,000 residents. In comparison, for every 10,000 people, Afghanistan has two doctors and five nurses, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has one doctor and five nurses and Iraq has five doctors and 10 nurses.

The health care community alone cannot address the challenge, according to the report, which calls on states, the armed forces and others who exercise authority to recognize that violence disrupts the delivery of health care.

“The most shocking finding is that people die in large numbers not because they are direct victims of a roadside bomb or a shooting,” said Robin Coupland, the study’s lead researcher. “They die because the ambulance does not get there in time, because health care personnel are prevented from doing their work, because hospitals are themselves targets of attacks or simply because the environment is too dangerous for effective health care to be delivered.”

Millions of lives could be spared if health care delivery were more widely respected, Coupland said.

Download the report at www.icrc.org/resources.

  • Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Nation's Health: 41 (8)
The Nation's Health
Vol. 41, Issue 8
October 2011
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Index by author
  • Complete Issue (PDF)

Healthy You

Healthy You

Print
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article
We do not capture any email addresses.
Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Online-only: Attacks on global health workers obstruct care, put millions at risk worldwide
(Your Name) has sent you a message from The Nation's Health
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this item on The Nation's Health website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Online-only: Attacks on global health workers obstruct care, put millions at risk worldwide
Teddi Dineley Johnson
The Nation's Health October 2011, 41 (8) E40;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Online-only: Attacks on global health workers obstruct care, put millions at risk worldwide
Teddi Dineley Johnson
The Nation's Health October 2011, 41 (8) E40;
del.icio.us logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
Tweet Widget Facebook Like LinkedIn logo

Jump to section

  • Top

More in this TOC Section

  • Newsmakers: May 2025
  • Newsmakers: April 2015
  • Newsmakers: February/March 2025
Show more Web-only News

Subjects

  • Work Force, Public Health
  • Occupational Health

Popular features

  • Healthy You
  • Special sections
  • Q&As
  • Quiz
  • Podcasts

FAQs

  • Advertising
  • Subscriptions
  • For APHA members
  • Submissions
  • Change of address

APHA

  • Join APHA
  • Annual Meeting
  • NPHW
  • AJPH
  • Get Ready
  • Contact APHA
  • Privacy policy

© 2025 The Nation's Health

Powered by HighWire