GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: The weaponisation of healthcare

domingo, 27 de mayo de 2018

The weaponisation of healthcare – a worldwide phenomenon

The weaponisation of healthcare – a worldwide phenomenon

Bioedge

The weaponisation of healthcare – a worldwide phenomenon

by Xavier Symons | 26 May 2018 |

A new report from the NGO Safeguarding Health in Conflict warns of worsening attacks on warzone healthcare facilities around the world, and calls on the international community to take immediate action. The report states that “in 2017 there were at least 701 attacks on hospitals, health workers, patients, and ambulances in 23 countries in conflict around the world”.

Some of the more shocking examples in the report include:

- In January, a Nigerian army plane dropped two bombs on an internally displaced persons camp near the town of Rann during a vaccination campaign, killing 90 people, including at least six Red Cross aid volunteers and three MSF contract workers. The army claimed that the bombing was accidental.

- In the Democratic Republic of Congo in April 2017, the Bana Mura militia, which is supported by the Congolese army, attacked a hospital in the town of Cinq in the Kasai region near the Angola border, killing at least 90 medical staff and patients, including pregnant women and other civilians.

-According to Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), 41 medical personnel, four administrative staff, and 19 civilians—including seven children—were killed in attacks on hospitals in 2017.

“Governments and armed groups inflict violence against health care with impunity in conflicts across the globe”, warned Leonard Rubenstein of Johns Hopkins University, the head of the NGO.

The Lancet has urged UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to “continue to condemn these attacks, work proactively to stop them, and hold the perpetrators accountable for their war crimes”.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Ireland, which was once Europe’s most socially conservative nation, has voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment to its constitution in order to permit abortion. The vote was roughly 2 to 1 in favour of change, with nearly the whole country supporting it. Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar reassured No voters. “Ireland will still be the same country today as it was before, just a little more tolerant, open and respectful.”

The legalisation of abortion comes hard on the heels of the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2015. Together they suggest that Ireland is not the same country, at least not compared to 1983, when the Eighth Amendment was passed by a 2 to 1 margin. It is obvious that the country has “changed, changed utterly” in a single generation – although people will differ on whether this signals a “terrible beauty” or a terrible shame.

What is responsible for the turnabout? The decline in the prestige and power of the Catholic Church, which once was synonymous with Irish culture, surely has something to do with it. But there must be other reasons as well, as Ireland is simply treading the well-worn path towards secularisation which has swept across Western Europe. It’s worthwhile trying to understand the dynamics of the change, as the rise of bioethics itself is part of that secularisation. Otherwise we – Ireland and the rest of us – will fail to understand ourselves.

One example of the narrative which is being used to explain the referendum result is the image of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian migrant who died after asking for an abortion in 2012. It was used to show what happens to women who are denied their reproductive rights. However, abortion had nothing to do with her tragic death, a government investigation concluded in 2014. Instead, it was a perfect storm of medical negligence.

“We have voted to look reality in the eye and we did not blink," says Mr Varadkar about the referendum result. If he meant by these self-congratulatory words that Ireland is no longer living in a world of delusion and lies, he has obviously spoken too soon.