A/68/297 29. Such attacks not only violate the right to health of people affected by conflict, including people involved in the conflict, but may also cripple the health-care system as a whole. Insecurity, stemming from the targeting of health-care workers by either the State forces or non-State groups, may result in health-care professionals fleeing, creating a dearth of trained medical professionals in these regions. 30 This may result in the increase of preventable health problems such as maternal health and child mortality and morbidity, besides the morbidity caused by conflict itself. 31 E. Military use and militarization of health facilities 30. Militarization refers to the taking over or use of health facilities and services by armed forces or law enforcement agencies for achieving military objectives. Such military use poses a serious risk to the life and health of patients and healthcare workers and erodes the role and perception of hospitals as a safe space to access health care. The impartiality of medical facilities is often compromised by the constant presence of security forces in hospitals and intimidation of patients and health-care workers in hospitals and clinics. 32 Hospitals and clinics are sometimes taken over by security forces in order to identify or arrest protestors injured in clashes with pro-Government forces. Those identified with protest-related injuries are often prevented from seeking emergency medical attention, removed from medical care, tortured or arrested (A/HRC/19/69, para. 63). Militarization of health care has also led to undesirable fallouts in respect of access to basic health care in some countries. Widespread fear of persecution leads civilians to avoid seeking treatment at health facilities and resort to treatment in unsafe conditions instead (ibid.). Such persecution violates the right to health of persons by impeding their access to quality health services. 31. In occupied territories and in areas where health care is funded or provided by the military, health-care workers have been targeted due to their perceived association with military forces. 33 Health professionals may also be targeted for providing services to anti-Government groups due to perceived support for such groups. 34 Misuse of health-care delivery programmes, such as vaccination programmes, to further military aims may erode the perception of impartiality of medical personnel and create mistrust of health workers among the civilian population, which may lead to killings of health-care workers and rejection of __________________ 30 31 32 33 34 10/24 David Stein and Barbara Ayotte, “East Timor: extreme deprivation of health and human rights”, Lancet, vol. 354, No. 9195 (11 December 1999), p. 2075. Paul C. Webster, “Roots of Iraq’s maternal and child health crisis run deep”, Lancet, vol. 381, No. 9870 (16 March 2013), p. 892; Bernadette A. M. O’Hare and David P. Southall, “First do no harm: the impact of recent armed conflict on maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa”, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 100, No. 12 (December 2007), p. 565. PHR, Do no harm: a call for Bahrain to end systemic attacks on doctors and patients (Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., April 2011), pp. 27-29. MSF, In the Eyes of Others: How People in Crises Perceive Humanitarian Aid (New York, 2012), pp. 134-154. Peter Apps, “Once seen as neutral, aid workers fight perceived bias”, Reuters, 31 August 2007. Available from www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/31/us-aid-bias-idUSL3184999120070831. 13-42297