Responsibility for protection of medical workers and facilities in armed conflict

Lancet
Leonard S Rubenstein, Melanie D Bittle

Abstract

Assaults on patients and medical personnel, facilities, and transports, denial of access to medical services, and misuse of medical facilities and emblems have become a feature of armed conflict despite their prohibition by the laws of war. Strategies to improve compliance with these laws, protection, and accountability are lacking, and regular reporting of violations is absent. A systematic review of the frequency of reporting and types of violations has not been done for more than 15 years. To gain a better understanding of the scope and extent of the problem, we used uniform search criteria to review three global sources of human rights reports in armed conflicts for 2003-08, and in-depth reports on violations committed in armed conflict during 1989-2008. Findings from this review showed deficiencies in the extent and methods of reporting, but also identified three major trends in such assaults: attacks on medical functions seem to be part of a broad assault on civilians; assaults on medical functions are used to achieve a military advantage; and combatants do not respect the ethical duty of health professionals to provide care to patients irrespective of affiliation. WHO needs to lead robust and systematic documentation of ...Continue Reading

References

May 9, 2007·Bulletin of the World Health Organization·Robin Coupland

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Citations

Mar 17, 2010·Lancet·Peter Hall
Jan 24, 2014·Lancet·Omar DewachiRita Giacaman
Mar 22, 2013·The New England Journal of Medicine·Robin Coupland
May 25, 2013·Global Public Health·Sabrina Gaber, Preeti Patel
Sep 15, 2012·Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine : PEHM·Leith Hathout
Feb 3, 2016·Seminars in Pediatric Surgery·Maeve O Trudeau, David H Rothstein
Jan 29, 2013·Lancet·Mahmood AdilDilshad Khan
Apr 17, 2016·Social Science & Medicine·Ludvig FoghammarRachel Irwin
Mar 29, 2014·Social Science & Medicine·Katherine H A FooterLeonard Rubenstein
Jul 6, 2016·Medicine, Conflict, and Survival·Dilshad JaffLewis Margolis
Mar 29, 2018·BMC Medical Education·Riyadh LaftaGilbert Burnham
Jan 26, 2018·Health Services Research·Farrah J MateenSherri Rose
Jun 18, 2019·Prehospital and Disaster Medicine·Nanami Morokuma, Cindy H Chiu
Dec 1, 2017·Health Policy and Planning·Malalai NaziriSherin Varkey
Apr 5, 2019·Medicine, Conflict, and Survival·Mohammed Hassaan Afzal, Anisa Jabeen Nasir Jafar
Apr 3, 2020·Medicine, Conflict, and Survival·Mohammed Hassaan Afzal, Anisa Jabeen Nasir Jafar
Mar 2, 2021·Medicine, Conflict, and Survival·Agneta KallströmJussi Kauhanen

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