A report by the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), in partnership with the World Health Organisation, has attracted global attention, with leading international organisations discussing its contents at major forums.
"We collaborated with WHO and came up with a landmark report called ‘In the line of Fire’, which talks about attack on health. Now this report in the last 18 months has been feeding the agenda at forums like the Human Rights Council in Geneva or WHO’s World Health Assembly,” Dr Sunoor Verma, director of Partnerships and Outreach, WISH, told the Gulf Times.
Dr Sunoor said that WISH, a global healthcare initiative of Qatar Foundation, commissions reports on several important topics, which are then launched at every summit, and thereafter advocacy work is carried out around the world with WISH partners.
"So that took us to Osaka, where Qatar Pavilion hosted us for a public-facing event to discuss the healthcare issues,” explained Dr Sunoor.
"Then we convened in New York at the General Assembly to talk more specifically about what happens to humans and various diseases, when there is a humanitarian crisis, when there is an attack on health,” he said.
The official said that there has been a drastic change in recent years in the fate of healthcare entities during conflicts or periods of geopolitical tension.
"In earlier years, during a war or other conflicts, the moment there was any building or facilities associated with healthcare emergency, or an ambulance, nobody would touch it. Over the last 15-20 years or so, there has been a remarkable change, an unfortunate one, where these signs have become actually the primary targets so that you get populations to be displaced and move. So attacking health has become a tool in conflicts for warring parties,” he lamented.
In the course of the last 14-15 years since its inception, Dr Sunoor said that WISH has commissioned a number of evidence-based reports.
"I think the unique part about WISH is, it chooses what to report on. So these are either issues that are under the radar, or there are issues that are underfunded globally,” he noted.
He said that all the reports WISH produces address issues that require urgent attention or dialogue, and that WISH has so far produced a large number of such reports.
"As you see, health is not healthcare or medical science alone anymore. Health is at the intersection of things like urban planning, information technology, climate change, innovation among others. So health is now at an intersection of so many disciplines and all these determine the path of health. These reports are shaped accordingly and they can inform policymakers and then policymakers can advance the agenda,” underlined Dr Sunoor.
The report ‘In the Line of Fire’ describes trends in global conflict, highlighting the scale and nature of attacks and their effects on population health.
It speaks about protective mechanisms for the delivery of healthcare in armed conflict, setting out existing legal frameworks and accountability under International Humanitarian Law.
It also underscores the need to build resilience and preparedness through capacity building, to explore protective measures through adaptive design, and to engage more effectively with armed forces and non-state actors.
WISH will hold its 8th summit this year on November 29-30 under the theme ‘The New Health Span’ at the Qatar National Convention Centre.