Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Doctors Without Borders
expresses deep concern about the security of its surgical center in Aden after a group of armed men forcibly entered the hospital on Monday night (18th/19th June) and attempted to take away a patient,
who was being treated in the emergency room. MSF staff tried its best to ensure medical care and protection of the patient, following international laws and rules of hospitality that are highly valued by the Yemeni community.
These threats to our personnel and to the functioning of the hospital force us today to temporarily suspend activities, seeking official clarification and reassurances that the events represent an unfortunate but isolated incident.
The incident is a flagrant breach of the guarantee of safe treatment for all patients in the MSF medical facility. MSF has a strict no-weapons policy in all of the health facilities where it operates and considers this latest incident a violation of the laws and agreements regulating the respect of hospital structures and the medical mission.
Since April this year, MSF has been running an emergency surgical referral center located inside Al-Wahda Hospital complex in Aden. MSF has treated over 200 patients free-of-charge in the past two months. Eighty percent of patients have been admitted with violence-related trauma, including women and children, mainly due to gunshot injuries and burns caused by bomb blasts. MSF carries out an average of seven life-saving operations each day. Half of our patients come from Aden and over a third are referred from the towns of Jaar and Lawdar in the governorate of Abyan. Patients are admitted regardless of their political or religious affiliations.
MSF seeks to work constructively with all sides to ensure that such incidents do not happen again. As an independent and impartial medical organisation, MSF is purely concerned about providing the best medical care possible for its patients.
MSF has decided to suspend its activities in the surgical center for three days in order to assess the security implications of the incident and to gain assurances from community leaders and local authorities that this will not happen again .
MSF calls on all parties in Yemen to adhere to the principles of international humanitarian law and universal medical ethics that call for the respect and protection of healthcare facilities and their personnel, as they treat patients equally regardless of race, religion, political or ethnic affiliation.
ليست هناك تعليقات :
إرسال تعليق