Health Workers Threaten Exit Amid Armed Raids: Who's Really Protecting the Healers?
A few years ago, I stumbled into a situation I never saw coming—I was sitting in a dusty rural clinic, helping a friend who was volunteering as a nurse overseas, when we heard what sounded like gunshots in the distance. My heart stopped. She didn’t even flinch. “It’s just Wednesday,” she said, half-joking, half-exhausted.
That moment stuck with me. I was just visiting. She had to live it.
Fast forward to now, and I’m reading headlines that feel eerily similar: Health workers threaten exit amid armed raids. And I can’t help but wonder… what kind of world do we live in where the people who show up to save lives have to fear for their own every single day?
Let’s just be real for a second—these folks didn’t sign up for this. They signed up for long shifts, emotional overload, maybe even the occasional bodily fluid mishap. But not this. Not masked intruders storming clinics. Not hearing gunfire while trying to stitch up a child. Not needing an escape plan during a shift.
And yet, here we are.
I’ve heard some people say, “Well, they knew it was dangerous when they took the job.” But I don’t buy that. No one signs up for war-zone conditions in what’s supposed to be a hospital. It’s not some action movie. It's a nurse cradling a baby with one hand while texting her family to say, “If anything happens, I love you.”
In my experience, health workers are some of the most quietly brave people out there. They don’t post about it. They don’t rant. They show up. Even when they’re underpaid. Even when they’re overworked. Even when the gloves run out. (Remember that early pandemic panic? Yeah. They were still there.)
But now? They’re saying they might not be. And I don’t blame them.
Imagine walking into your job tomorrow knowing there’s a real chance you’ll be held at gunpoint—or worse. Would you still go? Would you keep showing up?
Some won’t. And I get it. Survival has a way of trumping duty. You can’t care for others when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.
What scares me is what happens next. If the healers leave, who steps in? If we don’t protect the people who protect us, then who’s left?
Honestly, I don’t have a neat answer. I wish I did. But I keep thinking about that dusty clinic. About my friend, who stayed longer than she should’ve. And about the nurse today, somewhere in the world, trying to keep it together while chaos bangs at the door.
So maybe the real question isn’t “Why are they threatening to leave?”
Maybe it’s, “Why haven’t we given them more reasons to stay?”
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