Pervasive violence against hospitals, patients, doctors and other health workers as become a horrifically common feature of modern war. These relentless attacks destroy lives and the capacity of health systems to attend to those in need. Inaction to stop this violence undermines long standing values and laws designed to ensure that sick and wounded people receive care. In "Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War," Leonard Rubenstein, a human rights lawyer who has investigated atrocities against health workers around the world, offers an account of the dangers health workers face during conflict and the legal political and moral struggle to protect them.
In a dozen case studies he shares the stories of people who have been attacked while seeking to serve patients under dire circumstances.
Leonard Rubenstein is professor and director of the Program on Human Rights and Health in Conflict at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was previously President of Physicians for Human Rights and as a recognized global expert on violence against healthcare.
