El Comercio: Secretly providing medical care gives casualties hope

During conflict, doctors are unable to operate safely in their regular working places to treat conflict causalities. Alleviating lack of healthcare resources through underground methods may be a way to resolve this.

During the second UNFPA council session, the delegate of Cambodia raised an interesting solution to attacks on healthcare resources: Underground medical facilities. He defined underground as being secret and unknown to the general public except to the governments and organisations involved. The aim of it was to provide medical assistance to the victims and refugees of war and conflict while evading possible attacks from enemy nations.

The notion is an appealing one and will be especially helpful to countries riddled with armed conflict and existing difficulties in providing healthcare facilities. Hospitals may be destroyed by bomb attacks during war, resulting in a lack of necessary medical equipment, imaging utilities, medications, and specialist medical expertise to deal with high demands of medical care. Sieges and lack of food in cities may also contribute to mass casualties. However, through creating makeshift medical amenities, doctors or medical personnel can reach out to people in need of treatment quickly. This may lower the risk of death from injuries or illnesses and save lives of innocent civilians. There exist a few such secret facilities in the world, such as the ‘field’ hospitals in Syria.

However, the concept of such facilities needs to be further expanded and discussed on to ensure its smooth and efficient operation. A more organized support for the healthcare system is needed on multiple levels:

Firstly, a collaboration of the international governmental and non-governmental efforts and organizations (e.g. UNICEF, International Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and others) to alleviate the lack of amenities and fund the construction of such facilities.

Secondly, advocacy for preserving and protecting existing medical infrastructures and maintaining a minimum level of healthcare resources for the injured and displaced by the conflict is necessary.

Lastly, establishing a health surveillance and regulating force for the detrimental health and environmental impacts of the crisis is crucial.

All in all, with further development and conceptualisation, as well as with the cooperation of member states and non-governmental organisations, underground medical facilities can help to retain a certain minimum level of healthcare in conflict zones.