“It is a regression globally,” says Dainius Puras, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health, one of more than a dozen honorary officials with broad mandates to research some designated area of global concern. In the past, Puras and his predecessors have highlighted international problems that intersect with well-being like mental health, children’s health care, and reproductive health. Now in his fourth year in the role, Puras requested the report draw attention to the ways health care has been “criminalized,” either by the overly broad use of counter-terrorism laws or harassment by state officials.  It’s a subject that has been relatively unexplored within the wider discussion of human rights.

Researchers from the University of Essex, Johns Hopkins University, and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition collaborated on the 30-page report, which analyzes the protections health care providers have in 16 countries, including places embroiled in civil war and those emerging from conflict. A team of consultants and analysts worked over the past year with UN agencies, human rights groups, and other stakeholders to review publicly available legal information and media reports to assess the legal and informal ways medical providers have been harassed.

“There are no laws we found that specifically target health care,” says Leonard Rubenstein, a co-author of the study who is a human rights lawyer and senior scientist with the Center for Public Health and Human Rights and a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. “But we found very few that specifically have exceptions for health care.”

…continue reading ‘In Some Countries, Following the Hippocratic Oath Is a Crime’

Image: via Flickr  Some rights reserved by physiciansforhumanrights

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