- The Guardian
- Issue #2197
We stand in solidarity with the healthcare workers, emergency services, disability support workers, mental health clinicians and drug and alcohol workers who are continuing to provide treatment, care, and support to the people of Lebanon and Iran under uncertain and terrifying conditions.
Surrounded by danger, inundated with thousands of displaced people, and stripped of even the most basic resources, healthcare workers continue to show up day after day, caring for the countless victims of war.
Even as the conflict engulfs their own lives and impacts their own families and loved ones, the healthcare workers of Iran and Lebanon refuse to turn away, holding fast to their duty to heal in the face of unimaginable hardship.
HACSU is profoundly concerned for the safety and wellbeing of people with disabilities, and those living with mental ill-health, and risky substance misuse, who bear a disproportionate burden in times of conflict.
As violence escalates, the barriers they face in accessing even the most basic services and support become more severe and more dangerous. This is an urgent humanitarian concern that demands immediate and compassionate international action.
We note that many healthcare facilities across Iran and Lebanon have been forced to close, including the Delaram Sina Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran which has been destroyed beyond repair resulting in countless patients not being able to receive the treatment they need when they need it most.
HACSU members will always stand side by side with our international healthcare worker family and stand up for the patients, participants, and consumers they support.
Hospitals, caring facilities, and healthcare workers must never be a target of war, and those nations who engage in such reckless and illegal warfare must face the full force of international law.
HACSU firmly supports peace and does not accept claims that this war is in the interest of or promotes the freedoms of working people in Iran, Lebanon, or across the world.
Some argue that this war is meant to free and liberate the people of Iran. We reject this claim. As we have seen across the Middle East and across the world, bombing and violent military interventions do not create freedom, democracy, or peace.
Painfully high fuel prices, interest rate hikes, and deepening inequality are not accidental – they are the predictable consequences of war.
HACSU members on the frontline of delivering critical treatment, care and support within the mental health, disability and drug and alcohol sectors are seeing firsthand the impact of relentless budget cuts on the patients, consumers and participants they support, while they themselves struggle to make ends meet.
HACSU also calls on the Albanese Labor government to rethink AUKUS and put the $368bn towards things that matter to working people and their families right now: safe, accessible healthcare, housing, and medical supplies.
The war in Iran and Lebanon once again proves that PEACE IS UNION BUSINESS.
