Violence against health care must end

 

Violence against patients and health-care workers is one of the most crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issues today. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement runs a global campaign aiming to improve security and delivery of impartial and efficient health care in armed conflict and other emergencies.

Towards a solution : The Health Care in Danger project

Health Care in Danger is an ICRC-led project of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement scheduled to run from 2012 to 2015 and aimed at improving the efficiency and delivery of effective and impartial health care in armed conflict and other emergencies. This will be done by mobilizing experts to develop practical measures that can be implemented in the field by decision-makers, humanitarian organizations and health professionals.

Health Care in Danger: An issue for our times

PHOTO EXHIBITION - Placed for a month along the lake of Geneva, 94 powerful photographs portray both the impact of violence directed against medical personnel, facilities and vehicles and the struggle to provide medical care during war. They are taken mainly from the archives of ICRC and Getty Images and span three centuries.

  • Health care in danger at the 31st International Conference

    With some 3,700 participants from over 180 countries, the aim was to pass a resolution to promote respect and protection of health care – a milestone in a 4-year process towards development of solutions to address this global problem.

  • Health care in danger: questions and answers

    The Health Care in Danger campaign is an ICRC-led, Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement-wide initiative that aims to address the widespread and severe impact of illegal and sometimes violent acts that obstruct the delivery of health care, damage or destroy facilities and vehicles, and injure or kill health-care workers and patients, in armed conflicts and other emergencies.

  • Health Care in Danger expert consultations

    As part of the Health Care in Danger project, policymakers, academics, medics, weapon bearers and civil society gather to develop practical recommendations to improve safe access to health care. Several expert consultations have taken place since 2012.

  • Yemen conference: right to health care must be respected

    Daniel MacSweeney, the ICRC’s protection coordinator in Yemen, explains why the Health Care in Danger conference held in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a on 16 December is a vital step in ensuring greater respect for the protection of people’s right to health care in a country where armed conflict and other situations of violence are widespread.

  • Three Ivorian singing stars team up to stop violence against health care

    Côte d'Ivoire: three star singers have launched a video clip for the song "C'est une question de vie et de mort," which targets those who can facilitate – or prevent – the vital work of first aiders in situations of violence.