Health care workers face threat of violence, along with dangers of treating Covid-19 patients

Virus misinformation, fear leads to physical abuse and threats against medical workers around the world

Criminals take advantage of the pandemic to launch cyberattacks on hospitals and the World Health Organisation

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Medical workers around the world have put themselves at risk treating coronavirus patients and yet face violence, cybercrime and other dangers because of the pandemic. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:00pm, 25 Jun 2020Updated: 10:13pm, 25 Jun 2020

Health care workers around the world have been cheered and praised for risking their lives to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. They have also faced violence and abuse, sometimes from the patients they were trying to help.

The first examples came in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the outbreak. Media reports told of doctors being beaten and threatened as people could not get treatment in overcrowded hospitals. As the virus spread, reports of attacks against medical workers surfaced in other countries, some linked to misinformation on social media.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had reports of 208 Covid-19-related incidents against health care professionals in various countries between late February and April. They included harassment and violence, as well as stigmatisation for treating the disease.

Besides the physical threats, the World Health Organisation separately reported a surge in pandemic-related cyberattacks.

“What this crisis has demonstrated is that we face these kinds of problems, unfortunately, across all kinds of countries and all kinds of circumstances,” said Maciej Polkowski, head of the Health Care in Danger initiative at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Violence by people seeking medical attention or patients’ families was often driven by long waiting times at overwhelmed hospitals and the refusal to comply with infection control measures, Polkowski said.