Armed conflict damages health far beyond the injuries it causes. Health care for civilians and displaced people in conflict and prolonged instability is one of the areas of work of the International Medical Committee (IMC), the medical committee of the World Organization for Peace (WOFP).
In conflict, the heaviest health burden often comes not from injuries alone but from the breakdown of everything a health system needs to work: health workers, facilities, medicines, electricity, safe roads, and patients’ ability to reach care.
The concern is health — that of civilians and displaced people, wherever they are and whichever community they belong to — not the politics of any conflict.
The damage builds up over time, and often lasts longer than the violence.
Facilities are damaged or close, health workers leave, and supply chains for medicines and equipment break down. Capacity falls just as needs rise.
Insecurity, movement restrictions, damaged roads and cost can keep patients from care even where services still exist.
Civilians carry much of the health impact: injuries, interrupted treatment and the loss of basic services such as clean water.
People who flee lose their usual health services, their medical records and their ongoing treatment. Crowded settings raise the risk of communicable disease.
Vaccination, maternal and child health and care for chronic conditions are often the first services to stop and the last to recover.
When instability lasts for years, emergency measures are not enough. Needs shift toward chronic disease, maternal and child health and the long-term effects of interrupted care.
IMC applies its humanitarian medical response model here with particular attention to access and continuity, adapting it to each context and to local conditions.
Assessing not only medical needs but the barriers that keep people from care, with local authorities and the WOFP network.
Working with health authorities, agencies and local organizations so that assistance reaches civilians and displaced people without duplication.
Supporting health care for civilians and displaced people, with the supplies and logistics needed to work in a crisis.
Planning for needs that persist while instability continues, including chronic conditions and the follow-up of the affected population.
IMC gives priority to four needs:
Urgent medical care for civilians affected by violence.
Access to care for people who have left their homes, whether in camps, shelters or host communities.
The continuity of vaccination, maternal and child health and treatment of chronic conditions when regular services are disrupted.
Attention to the health risks of overcrowding and damaged water and sanitation.
In conflict, coordination determines access as much as efficiency. Humanitarian actors need to know where needs are greatest, which facilities still work and how assistance can reach civilians.
IMC works with health authorities, agencies and local organizations, and draws on the institutional network of the World Organization for Peace.
A patient is a person who needs care, whatever community they belong to. In a conflict, IMC’s commitment to treat everyone without distinction of origin, belief or condition carries particular weight.
That commitment, and the dignity of every patient, are at the core of IMC’s humanitarian medical mission.
An area of IMC’s humanitarian medical work, alongside emergency medical response, disaster medicine and community health.
