New in JMIR: Challenges and Alternatives to Evaluation Methods and Regulation Approaches for ##Medical Apps as Mobile ##Medical Devices: International and Multidisciplinary Focus Group Discussion https://t.co/QniStmW3hG
New in JMIR: Tanzania’s and Germany’s #DigitalHealth Strategies and Their Consistency With the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on #DigitalHealth 2020-2025: Comparative #Policy Analysis https://t.co/F8EtZWGtFS
@titusschleyer kicking off the mini summit on Climate, Health & Informatics at #AMIA2023
It’s great to see a lot of old and new faces in the room.
Many avenues for collaboration with the @AMIAinformatics Global Health Informatics WG
Warm welcome to our new #BMCDigitalhealth Editorial Board Member @hollf from DigiHealth Institute, Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences. We look forward to working with you! Interested in joining #BMCDigitalHealth? Visit https://t.co/1buGQsAX3h
We have 2 postdoc positions open (100% for 4 years, starting asap)! One in #HCI and one on #prevention through #digitalization! More information here: https://t.co/rVUw3p6KQ9
WHO statement on attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and reported large-scale casualties
WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. The hospital was operational, with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there. Early reports indicate hundreds of fatalities and injuries.
The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military. The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced.
WHO calls for the immediate active protection of civilians and health care. Evacuation orders must be reversed. International humanitarian law must be abided by, which means health care must be actively protected and never targeted.
Evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured
As the @UN's agency responsible for public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly condemns Israel's repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe.
The lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance: those in intensive care or who rely on life support; patients undergoing hemodialysis; newborns in incubators; women with complications of pregnancy, and others all face imminent deterioration of their condition or death if they are forced to move and are cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated.
Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds.
Forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.
Hospital directors and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice: abandon critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, put their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them.
Overwhelmingly, caregivers have chosen to stay behind and honor their oaths as health professionals to “do no harm,” rather than risk moving their critically ill patients during evacuations. Health workers should never have to make such impossible choices.
Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them as havens from violence as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. Their lives, too, are at risk when health facilities are bombed.
There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.
WHO calls for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and calls for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians.
WHO also reiterates its calls for the immediate and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance, including WHO health supplies that arrived earlier today, is currently awaiting entry.
The horrific attacks in Israel cannot justify the limitless destruction of Gaza.
The evacuation orders, coupled with the complete siege, are not compatible with IHL.
We are committed to providing aid to Gaza and we reiterate our readiness to visit the hostages there. Read more👇
https://t.co/K8IqwAVBYK