Hospitals turned to rubble, medics kidnapped, ambulances bombed. Choosing to save lives should never cost your own and yet, in Syria, being a healthcare worker has meant being a target.

Even after the fall of the Assad regime, they remain in danger from trauma, burnout, violence and poverty, in systems broken by decades of brutality and corruption.

Our report offers a frontline account of what it means to protect lives under fire. Based on 20 in-depth interviews with Syrian healthcare workers across regions, genders, and roles, it traces the evolution of risks - from siege, starvation and airstrikes, to insecurity and neglect. It’s an account of the deep emotional and physical toll taken on by medics who serve amidst war, and their brave responses to the increased and deliberate target of medical facilities: they built underground hospitals and camouflaged ambulances, risking everything to keep others alive. However, local bravery and ingenuity cannot be enough: medics remain exhausted, traumatised and underfunded. 

At its heart, this report delivers a set of clear, practical recommendations grounded in the levied realities of Syrian healthcare workers, which include calls for hospital fortification funding, early warning systems, secure salaries and more. All of this requires coordinated action from donors, UN agencies, government and civil society, to ensure that medics are no longer forced to choose between saving people’s lives and protecting their own.

True global backing was needed then, and it is still needed now as the targeting of hospitals has already echoed beyond Syria - in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan - where healthcare workers are once again abandoned under fire, while international mechanisms fail again and again to prepare or respond to these crimes. Without a serious reform to how medics are protected and funded in conflict zones, Syria will remain a warning - not a lesson learnt.