This article is from The Lancet, Correspondence Vol. 399, Issue 10340 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00785-1). The article was published on May 28, 2022 and authored by Michelle Ann B. Eala, Ethan Angelo S. Maslog, Janine Patricia G. Robredo, Raymond Joshua L. San Pedro, Paolo Victor N. Medina, Edelina P. De la Paz, and Gideon Lasco. Original article can be found here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00785-1/fulltext

Filipino health-care workers have not been immune to the growing violence and impunity in the country since President Duterte took office in 2016. Since 2017, at least ten doctors have been violently killed in various regions of the Philippines. Six were killed in 2017 alone [1]. In 2020, Mary Rose Sancelan, a city health officer in Negros Oriental, and the only doctor serving in the province’s COVID-19 pandemic response, was shot dead with her husband. She was previously red-tagged by a local anti-communist vigilante group. In December, 2021, Raul Andutan, a surgeon and medical director in Cagayan De Oro, was killed in broad daylight for a reported bounty of US$3000 [3].

Both the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and a militarised COVID-19 response have enabled and exacerbated this violence. The Alliance of Health Workers, a local health-care worker union, was accused of fronting the Communist Party of the Philippines [3]. Amid the pandemic, nurses were evicted for fears of spreading the virus [4], and an ambulance driver accused of endangering the community was shot for parking in a residential area [5]. The escalation of offences eventually prompted the creation of the Mandatory Protection of Health Workers, Frontliners, and Patients Act [6].

The accumulation of such incidents causes insecurity—real or perceived—with consequences that are far-reaching. The absence of security creates medical deserts, depriving entire communities of health care, and causing severe and lasting disruptions to public health across the archipelago. The indirect consequences of violence against health-care workers are thus diffuse and insidious, but might assume disastrous proportions.

All forms of harm maliciously inflicted upon health-care workers are abhorrent and unacceptable, especially when they result in the irreversible termination of a life. Beyond being seen as human resources, health-care workers deserve dignity, safety, and security; to only call them heroes or appeal to their patriotism is paltry lip service and simply does not do enough. Although national and international communities have condemned these senseless attacks, very few cases have been resolved, and even fewer influential institutions have gone beyond issuing statements of condemnation. More so, the enabling environment for health-care workers to organise themselves to seek redress for even the most basic of grievances, much less actively pursue justice for fallen colleagues, leaves much to be desired.

We call on our leaders to act with commensurate urgency in serving justice for our health-care workers, and in safeguarding health-care workers against both explicit and surreptitious harm. The murder of a life spent in service of the underserved should be unsettling, and should lead to concrete reform, accountability, and justice, especially by people and institutions in power. We ask the international health community for solidarity in support of this call.

We declare no competing interests.

References

1. Felongco GP, Group slams continued killing of doctors. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Group%20+%20slams+continued%20+%20killing%20+%20of%20+%20doctors%20-%20a0504950186
2. Lasco G., Justice for Dr Raul Andutan. https://opinion.inquirer.net/147376/justice-for-dr-raul-andutan
3. Gavilan J., Groups slam “dangerous” red-tagging of health workers. https://www.rappler.com/nation/227930-groups-slam-red-tagging-harassment-health-workers/
4. Santos AP, Attacked & underpaid: medics in Philippines battle stigma, virus. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/2/attacked-underpaid-medics-in-philippines-battle-stigma-virus
5. Talabong R., Frontliner attacked in Quezon for parking ambulance inside subdivision. https://www.rappler.com/nation/256888-frontliner-attacked-quezon-coronavirus-fears/
6. Senate of the Philippines, Hontiveros files bill to protect health workers from discrimination, amid COVID-19 crisis (press release). http://legacy.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2020/0416_hontiveros1.asp