The International Health Protection Initiative believes that health care MUST be protected during armed conflict.
The International Health Protection Initiative (IHPI) is a collective movement of individuals, organisations, institutions and charities (including non-Governmental Organisations-NGOs) who have agreed to help to lobby the United Nations to act to uphold the Geneva Conventions, especially as regards safe-guarding health facilities/equipment/transport, and workers. The Resolution was agreed following a meeting of the International Child Health Group held in November 2010.
Your support is urgently needed for an international resolution to protect healthcare during armed conflict
The resolution will ultimately be submitted to the United Nations (General Assembly, Security Council, and World Health Organization).
In order to achieve the objectives outlined in the resolution, we need the majority of the world’s healthcare organisations, institutions, NGOs and civil society, especially those in conflict afflicted countries to sign up to this important resolution.
We know that you are aware of the urgent need to protect healthcare during armed conflict, that is, to uphold the Geneva Conventions and we would be most grateful for your support.
Once you have read the resolution we respectfully urge you to sign up to it online, as an individual, or preferably, on behalf of your government, institution, or medical organisation. We also encourage you to state your reasons for supporting this resolution in the appropriate box.
So please Sign up now!
Many thanks for your time and attention and we look forward to working with you to help make this life-saving resolution a reality
The IHPI Team
info@ihpi.org
"War...is when some adults who don't know what good is and what love is, are throwing dangerous war toys which injure innocent people" Tamara aged 10 years during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovena.
7th July 2012 Dr Jim McDermott and Dr. Stephen N. Xenak in an important article call for more effective intervention by the USA in Syria to protect healthcare. They state "To protect vulnerable civilian communities all around the world, Congress and the administration must fully support and enact as soon as possible the Medical Neutrality Protection Act — a bill that bans the sale of select U.S. military assistance to countries whose governments attack hospitals, detain doctors, intimidate patients and commit other violations of medical neutrality".
21st May 2012 Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have just published a report entitled: "Under the Gun: Ongoing Assaults on Bahrain’s Health System". The findings of this report are based on 102 interviews, the examination of medical records and radiographic images, and site visits by PHR investigators in April 2012.
April 23rd 2012 Healthcare in danger symposium at BMA House, London
See NEWS section for more details.
Here are three questions IHPI organisers asked at this symposium:
1. "The proliferation of arms, most originating from the permanent members of the UN Security Council, is without doubt adding to the ferocity and inhumanity of existing conflicts and their effects on defenceless citizens; damaging their health and healthcare. Should we not be targeting the unethical trade in arms and inputting to the Arms Control Treaty under discussion at this time."
2. "Given that in every recent conflict the Geneva Conventions have been blatently disregarded with inpunity, isn't it time to discuss the option of establishing and implementing an international protection system which has the mandate, authority and power to protect the health and healthcare of defenceless citizens who are being deliberatly targetted and attacked? And if so what form should such an international protection system take?"
3. "Surely respect for the sovereignty of States has to be based on the responsibility of the behaviour of those in power".
NEW FILM: 13 April 2012 Grossly inadequate healthcare for 350,000 people in the Nuba mountains of Sudan being attacked by Government forces
Film on Channel 4
Channel 4 have once again revealed another set of atrocities resulting from seemingly unstoppable armed conflicts, this time in Sudan affecting the Nuba people. This film shows the resulting and terrible injuries suffered by women and children following air attacks on civilians. It shows the almost non-existent health facilities available and the very small number of brave medical and nursing staff attempting to treat terrible injuries inflicted by the regime in Khartoum.
The film reveals yet again that the international community must wake up to the need to create an effective global protection system so that those war criminals who attack defenceless women and children must not be able to continue. Until the world is free of people in power without a conscience, which may never be achieved, there must be a strong and rapidly deployed international protection system.
John Prendergast from the Enough project states in this film: "This is a civilian protection crisis. We talk all the time about the responsibility to protect human life. Right here is a ground zero for that responsibility."
WHO resolution 23/1/2012
On 21st January 2012 The Executive Board of the World Health Organization passed a resolution addressing The World Health Organisation’s role in humanitarian crises that included a provision mandating WHO to leadership in collection and dissemination of data on attacks on health workers, health facilities, health transports and patients during armed conflict. The resolution will go to the World Health Assembly in May 2012 for its consideration.
Full details of this resolution are described here.
The World Medical Association's response to this including IHPI's support is outlined here.
UCDP Uppsala Conflict Data Program
The Department of Peace and Conflict Research has recently updated its data on armed conflicts to include those occurring in 2010. Maps showing the global locations of conflict can be reviewed as well as an encyclopedia of important data concerning every armed conflict which has been meticulously collected.
NEW ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY IHPI Here is an article that has just been published in the medical journal "Early Human Development" on the effects of armed conflict on women and children. The article is available on a free of charge basis. Please click on the following and open the PDF within the link.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378378211002805
On November 29th and December 1st 2011: Two presentations at medical conferences relevant to IHPI
1. At an international medical conference on neonatal healthcare at Imperial College London the keynote "David Harvey" lecture on "Maternal and infant healthcare during armed conflict: what can doctors do?"
2. At a confernec on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Emergencies at the Royal Society of Medicine Catastrophes & Conflict Forum in collaboration with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists a "Presentation on the latest developments with the IHPI".
Video regarding breaches of the access to healthcare for injuried civilians in Syria