Ensure protection of health workers

Ensure protection of health workers

As part of the right to health, the ICESCR provides that governments should create conditions that “would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.” 

Governments have an obligation to minimize the risk of occupational accidents and diseases including by ensuring workers have health information and adequate protective clothing and equipment. This means providing health workers and others involved in the COVID-19 response with appropriate training in infection control and with appropriate protective gear. 

Combating the spread of COVID-19 requires that health facilities have adequate water, sanitation, hygiene, healthcare waste management, and cleaning. A 2019 baseline report by WHO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that “[a]n estimated 896 million people use health care facilities with no water service and 1.5 billion use facilities with no sanitation service.”

Human Rights Watch research into hospital-acquired infections in Hungary suggests the nation’s mismanaged, underfunded, and understaffed public healthcare system is poorly equipped to handle a COVID-19 outbreak. Patients and medical experts described a lack of basic hygiene protocol, lack of isolation rooms, and a shortage of health professionals, doctors and nurses, and medical supplies in general. One doctor said it was nearly impossible to get essential items like disinfectant and respirator masks, which are critical to protect against viruses.

In Venezuela, Human Rights Watch has documented a health system in utter collapse. Hospitals have closed or are operating at a fraction of their capacity, many without regular access to electricity or water. Vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria have returned long before the pandemic hit.

Broad sanctions imposed by the US on Iran have drastically constrained the ability of the country to finance humanitarian imports, including medicines. This has caused serious hardships for ordinary Iranians. Concerned governments should support Iran’s efforts to combat the COVID-19, including by providing access to medical devices and testing kits.

In Thailand, public health capacity has been diminished by corruption. Medical personnel lack surgical masks and local supplies have been diverted and shipped to China and other markets in part due to corruption. 

The Health Ministry in Egypt in February sent doctors and medical teams to a quarantine facility without informing them that their transfer was part of the COVID-19 response or of the risks entailed. Medical staff said they were “tricked” into the assignment.

In Lebanon, the spokesperson for the country’s medical supply importers told Human Rights Watch that the country had run out of gloves, masks, gowns, and other supplies necessary to deal with the coronavirus outbreak due to the financial crisis that had prevented them from importing needed goods. She added that medical supply importers have brought in just US$10 million of the $120 million in goods they have sought since October and nearly all transactions have been frozen since February due to the country’s ongoing economic crisis. The head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals said that the government owes private hospitals more than $1.3 billion, compromising their ability to pay staff and purchase medical equipment. Yet the Lebanese government has not put in place any measures to address the economic crisis threatening access to medical care, medicine, and medical equipment.

Recommendations:

Governments should take measures so that health care is available to all, accessible without discrimination, affordable, respectful of medical ethics, culturally appropriate, and of good quality. 

Governments should ensure that health workers have access to appropriate protective equipment and that social protection programs are in place for the families of workers who die or become ill as a result of their work, and ensure such programs include informal workers, who represent a large share of the caregiving sector.

In past epidemics, fear of exposure has led to attacks on health workers. Governments should monitor for such attacks to deter them, and ensure that they can quickly, adequately, and appropriately respond if attacks occur.