Senior writer at IntraHealth International, Margarite Nathe, asks the question: What will become of the many people who relied on Sister Veronika’s care? Sister Veronika was a physician in her community in South Sudan. Nathe discusses the attacks on health care workers and what we can learn from them.

We know very little about what happened to our dear colleague Sister Veronika Rackova, a physician and Catholic nun who was loved by her community in Yei, South Sudan.

We know she was driving the St. Bakhita Medical Centre’s ambulance on May 16. We know she was on her way back from the neighboring Harvester’s Health Centre, to which she had rushed a pregnant woman in the midst of a medical emergency. And we know it was late at night, about 1am.

Most people in the region know the roads aren’t safe at that hour. Checkpoints that may be benign in the daylight grow more and more volatile as the night goes on and the soldiers manning them get rowdier or drunker. People get hurt.

But of course, medical emergencies are not restricted to safe hours or safe places.

Continue reading "A Colleague Lost, And The Unknown Devastation Of Attacks On Health Care" on the HuffingtonPost.com.