ABSTRACT

Armed conflicts, epidemics, famine, natural disasters, environmental emergencies and other major harmful events may involve or lead to a humanitarian crisis. It is expected that, in a crisis situation, the state should protect the public, by mobilizing specialized staff to deal with any danger as effectively as possible. Depending on the situation, the state-organized operations may involve firemen, policemen, military agents, and a variety of experts. However, it is always imperative that healthcare professionals also offer their services, in any kind of crisis. This chapter discusses the frequency of public health crises all over the world, as well as the probability of a global crisis related to infectious diseases; this evidence indicates that people need to speculate on the impact of these events on every sector. It considers number of difficulties which healthcare professionals have to deal with on such an occasion and explores their legal and ethical responsibilities.