David Nott: Medics Under Fire

Back in January when I first had the idea of a march to protest against the targeting of healthcare workers in warzones, I couldn’t have imagined how bad things would be by the time we gathered in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 7 May.

We marched – doctors, families, medical students, activists, experts and supporters – to Downing Street under the banner ‘Medics Under Fire.’  That week people had been shocked by the chilling footage of Dr Mohammed Moaz, whose family I knew in Aleppo, walking down a corridor in his hospital seconds before the direct attack on his hospital from an air to ground rocket delivered by a warplane.  Dr Moaz was one of the last remaining paediatricians in Aleppo and performed vital work looking after the children of that devastated city.

The hospital was just 500 metres from where I worked in the summer of 2014 and was destroyed, killing 27 healthcare workers and 2 doctors.  When I was there, five of my colleagues were killed as were both of the anaesthetists that I worked with. Both were targeted as they went to work in the hospital. One of the hospitals I worked in was bombed at least 10 times.

From Central African Republic and Sudan to the Yemen and Ukraine; ambulances, hospitals and health centres have been bombed, looted, burned and destroyed.

Read the complete blog at: The Hippocratic Post