Protecting Health Care from Attacks: From Frontline Experience to Action

Health care workers, patients, facilities, ambulances and other health care assets are exposed to violence, threats, obstruction and other forms of interference. These incidents have consequences beyond immediate deaths and injuries, disrupting essential health services, undermining health systems and affecting the communities that depend on them. Despite existing international norms, commitments and recommendations, attacks and other forms of violence affecting health care persist. 

This session brings together health care workers, NGOs, civil society organisations, health care institutions and international organisations to exchange perspectives on the realities of protecting health care, drawing on direct field experience from conflict-affected and other insecure settings where available. Through brief scene-setting interventions and a moderated, interactive discussion, it will look at the scale and impact of attacks, the challenges of protecting health care in practice, and practical measures to document incidents, mitigate risks, support affected health care workers and maintain the continuity of health services. The aim is to move beyond awareness of the problem towards what different stakeholders can do to strengthen protection, support those affected and advance existing commitments, and to identify opportunities for collaboration.