Download here the workshop presentation slides for the WADEM 2017 “Research Ethics Oversight in Disasters and Public Health Emergencies”, hosted by M. Hunt, D. O’Mathuna, and L. Schwartz.
WADEM ethics workshop slides
HHE led Sessions at WADEM (APRIL 26 & 28th)
New Publication: Research Ethics Governance in Times of Ebola
Research Ethics Governance in Times of Ebola
Public Health Ethics (2017) 10 (1): 49-61.
MARCH 31 CFP: Chapter contributions for volume on Humanitarian Action and Ethics
Humanitarian actors are now pressed to respond to increasingly complex crises in diverse and difficult contexts. Historically subject to multiple and often divergent interpretations, humanitarian values are now further challenged by changing conflict dynamics, globalization and its effect on shifting power relations, and a more sustained criticism of established forms of humanitarian response. Though under appreciated, ethical reflection offers an opportunity for deeper evaluation of humanitarian action, and its impact on those who endeavour to alleviate suffering and protect human dignity during, and in the aftermath of, humanitarian crises. This edited volume seeks to bring together academics and practitioners engaged in all aspects of both direct humanitarian response and scholarly humanitarian reflection, with the aim of offering a nuanced insight into the complexity of the humanitarian experience in a diversity of crisis contexts. As such, we welcome contributions related to any aspect of humanitarian action and ethics, with a particular interest in practitioner perspectives.
Call for Papers:
The volume is due to be submitted in its entirety by the 1st of August 2017. To be considered for inclusion in this volume, please kindly submit a 200-word abstract by the 31st of March to a.ahmad@ucl.ac.uk
Dr Ayesha Ahmad and Dr James Smith
Not to be missed! Two incredible upcoming talks hosted by McMaster History of Medicine
Title: “The Drowned, the Saved, and the Forgotten: Genocide Survivors and the Foundations of Modern Humanitarianism”
Speaker: Dr. Keith Watenpaugh, Professor and Director, Human Rights Studies Program, Co-Director University of California Human Rights Collaboration, Department of Religious Studies, University of California at Davis
The talk will take place:
- Wednesday, March 22, 2017
- 3:00pm to 5:00pm
- Health Sciences Building/McMaster Medical Centre (HSC) 1A6
Abstract: All humanitarian emergencies are not created equal, or at least not constructed in the humanitarian imagination equally. Where they happen, who is affected, the judged “worthiness” of victims and the quality of need are among the several conditions that transform how a problem of humanity becomes a problem for humanity, like genocide. Examining the international humanitarian response to the genocide of the Ottoman Armenians (1915-1922), he argues that modern humanitarianism and genocide have a complex and intertwined history that has particular relevance to concepts like humanitarian neutrality, humanitarian governance and the role of justice in relief and what would be called now, rights-based development.
Biography: Professor Keith David Watenpaugh studies the history, theory and practice of human rights and humanitarianism and directs the UC Davis Human Rights Studies Program. He is author of Bread From Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (California, 2015) and Being Modern in the Middle East (Princeton, 2006). His work has been translated into French, German, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish and Persian.
Title: “Refugees, Human Rights, and the Syrian War”
Speaker: Dr. Keith Watenpaugh, Professor and Director, Human Rights Studies Program, Co-Director University of California Human Rights Collaboration, Department of Religious Studies, University of California at Davis
The talk will take place:
- Wednesday, March 22, 2017
- 7:30pm to 9:00pm
- Health Sciences Building/McMaster Medical Centre (HSC) 1A1
Abstract: With several years of fieldwork in Syria and the Middle East, Dr. Watenpaugh will trace a history of the conflict in Syria and an understanding of the situation of Syrian refugees. He has worked with Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey and will provide some insights for health professionals working with these populations. He will explore the legal dilemmas of global humanitarianism and will address the recent ban on Muslims and refugees in the United States.
These two talks are co-sponsored by the following:
Department of History , Orphan Sponsorship Program, McMaster Muslim Student Association, Department of Health, Aging, Society, Humanitarian Healthcare Network, Department of Religious Studies
The History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Speaker Series is made possible by an endowment from Associated Medical Services (AMS).
For more information; please contact the Hannah Chair Dr. Ellen Amster at: amstere@mcmaster.ca.
Call for Papers (April 15th): Resisting Borders – A Virtual Conference on Refugee and Migrant Health, Mobility, Human Rights and Responsibilities
Refugees and many migrants have long suffered under constraints on their mobility, even in pressing or urgent circumstances. They are often forced to leave their homes for reasons beyond their control, including war and civil unrest, political and religious persecution, economics, or famine and other natural or man-made disasters. Once displaced, whether internally or externally, they may face pressing needs for food, water, shelter, and health care. To explore these and other overlapping issues, in solidarity with these refugees and migrants we are hosting a no-travel virtual conference to explore the following questions:
What kinds of restrictions on movement and travel of refugees are ethically permissible and which are not? When if ever are such restrictions ethically justifiable for refugees with needs for health services?
Greater acceptance and humanitarian support is presented as being in tension with greater concerns for security, but how does this tension play out empirically and philosophically?
What are the implications of ethically justified and unjustified restrictions? For example, in what ways do they create or perpetuate inequities?
What is the proper moral response of and toward states that opt to provide acceptance and support versus those that opt for restrictions on refugees and migrants?
Are there lessons from history that can shine light on the ethical dimensions and significance of mobility restrictions on refugees and migrants, and on fitting moral responses?
… and many other critical areas of inquiry.
We are especially interested in contributions from scholars and practitioners working in the areas of refugee health and/or international humanitarian law, immigration and security, health law and policy. Submissions from those who come from or work in regions facing travel restrictions are especially encouraged.
Interested participants should submit an abstract of 250 words no later than Saturday, April 15th, 2017. Abstracts should be submitted via email to the Organizing Chairs at info@resistingborders.com.
All abstracts should be in Word or RTF formats and contain the following information: a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) type of presentation (oral paper or panel presentation), and g) 3 keywords.
Panel presentations should consist of three to four abstracts organized around a central topic of direct relevance to the conference theme. Please use a plain sans serif 12-point font and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). More information will be forthcoming at http://resistingborders.com
TALK: Corpses and Places: Remaking World and Afterworld in a Camp for Displaced Persons Elizabeth Dunn
Corpses and Places: Remaking World and Afterworld in a Camp for Displaced Persons
Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Time: 3:30-5:00 pm
Location: Degroote School of Business, Room 505
Abstract: For refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), displacement is more than a technical problem of logistics and delivery, and more than just a problem of maintaining biological existence. It is an existential dilemma posed by the destruction not only of their homes, but of the world they once knew, including many of their social relationships, their attachments to places and the structures and practices they used to create meaning. In this talk, I look at how IDPs in the Republic of Georgia create topolgangers—two very different and distinct places on the identical terrain—to recreate the villages they lost on the grounds of the camp. In doing so, they begin to reconstitute the world as a comprehensible space where action has meaning.
Biography: Elizabeth Dunn is a trained anthropologist and currently an associate professor cross-appointed in geography and international studies at Indiana University. In addition to numerous academic articles and books on post-socialist privatization and questions of public health after communism, she has written on aid, humanitarianism, and refugee policy for Science, Boston Reviewand Slate, and this research has also been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Die Zeit, and SINC, a Spanish news agency. More information can be found at http://www.elizabethcullendunn.com/
HHE Trainee Gautham Krishnaraj wins 2nd Place & Dean’s Award in McMaster 3MT
Humanitarian Health Ethics Trainee and McMaster Global Health student Gautham Krishnaraj competed in the McMaster University 3 Minute Thesis Contest last week at the David Braley Health Sciences Centre in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Krishnaraj came away successful, receiving second place and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Communicating Research, for his presentation entitled “Nothing Left To Offer”. A full transcript of his speech is below, and a video will be shared as soon as available – congratulations Gautham!
“At the peak of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Canadian Physician James Orbinski, was frantically taping numbers to patient’s foreheads outside of a Medecins Sans Frontieres field hospital. The code was simple: 1 meant treat immediately, 2: treat within 24 hrs, 3; leave to die. What did this mean? Patients quickly realized that the Number 3 signified that for them, the humanitarians simply had nothing left to offer. Imagine dying alone, in excruciating pain, just meters away from care – in a hospital hallway or parking lot, with a Number 3 taped to your head.
What should be provided to the Number 3’s? My name is Gautham Krishnaraj and this is the central question of my Masters research with Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group at McMaster University. The save-only ideology exhibited by Dr. Orbinski is reflective of a deep scarcity of resources and undeniably good intentions, but does not represent the historical and foundational principles of humanitarian healthcare. These principles were set forth by Red Cross Founder Henri Dunant in 1864, when he galvanized the citizens of a small northern Italian town to provide impartial care to over 23,000 dying soldiers. The call to humanitarian action was bifold; the citizens were to save lives and alleviate suffering… however this second ideal has slowly fallen by the wayside.
The alleviation of suffering, also known palliative care, is what is offered to those whom we cannot save. It ranges from pain and symptom management to the provision of psychological, social and even spiritual support. The aim of my research is to identify some of the perceived barriers to providing palliative care in humanitarian contexts, and we have begun to do so through a series of hour long, semi-structured interviews with humanitarian healthcare providers and a globally disseminated survey. The topic of funding arose early and often; donors prefer to see the number of lives saved rather than deaths eased. The early interviews have also yielded potential venues for the re-integration of a palliative approach into humanitarian healthcare, including the very triage model that was pushed to its extreme in Rwanda. This research will provide critical insight into the field and inform the development of new organizational policies that will better equip humanitarians for their daily reality of dealing with death.
In one of the most recent interviews, a respondent recalled the story of a Haitian orphan who died while seeking pain medication in the aftermath of the earthquake. She was turned away the first time, because she was an orphan. The second, because she was disabled. She died in the parking lot of the third attempt, where palliative care was not offered. No one should have to die like this, as the right to to dignity remains even in death, and if our initial findings hold true, they suggest that there is always something left to offer.”
Read more on the McMaster Global Health Blog:
NOV 2, 2016 SAVE THE DATE – CERAH Panel on Health Care in Danger
“When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”
Time: Wednesday November 2, 18:30 – 20:30
Location: Medical Faculty UNIGE, Auditorium A250, avenue de Champel 9, 1206 Genève
Attacks on medical facilities in conflict zones have killed and injured countless patients and healthcare professionals in recent years, destroying infrastructures and depriving people of access to medical care.
Moderator Prof Doris SCHOPPER, Director of CERAH, medical doctor and professor at the Medical Faculty of Geneva University will ask representatives of ICRC, WHO and MSF, who are exposed in the field together with affected populations: “When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”
Panelists
- Erin Kenney, Technical Officer, Stop Attacks on Health Care Workers, WHO
- Marine Buissonière, Not A Target Senior Coordinator, MSF
- Ali Naraghi, Head of the Health Care in Danger project, ICRC
Denunciating that medical facilities are #NotATarget, MSF will also present a short film and expose their expo booth in front of the auditorium.
Panel Discussion “When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”
OCT 6, 2016 – Live Webinar How to Raise Funds in “Humanitarian Situations”
Live Webinar How to Raise Funds in “Humanitarian Situations”
Date: Thursday Oct 6, 2016 || Time: 13:30-15:00 GMT
The number of emergency situations around the world is increasing. When a crisis erupts, or within the context of an ongoing emergency, there are many funding mechanisms that are available. However, it can be difficult to access this funding, due to the system’s complexity and the chaos that ensues in an emergency situation. This webinar will help to explain the complexities of the humanitarian funding system and empower NGOs to identify potential sources of funding.
Presenter: Janet Ilott is an experienced development and humanitarian professional, with experience working in Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America. Janet is an experienced proposal developer and project manager, who has worked in emergency and post-emergency situations and has first-hand experience of the realities of working in such contexts. Throughout her career, she has developed a broad range of proposals for institutional donors, corporations and foundations. She has worked in Haiti, South Sudan, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya and Morocco
