How aid cuts are hurting refugees and health workers

Humanitarian aid cuts are crippling hospitals and leaving refugees without support. Here’s a firsthand look at the real impact of global relief withdrawal.

I have a wife and child at home - people I truly love. Having been through layoffs, I can feel the pain when a person tells me that they’ve lost their job. How do you break the news to your family and friends?

Self-doubt, stress, piling bill payments, all creep in steadily. At least here in Canada we have Employment Insurance and a social safety net, but most other countries do not have that.

So, when I watched this video of our field staff member saying that they lost 51 staff members, my heart sank. These are real people who have dedicated their lives to helping the most vulnerable people in the world. It isn’t just 51 people, but 51 families.

What happens to real people, families and children when high income nations decide to scale back investment in humanitarian aid? The answer isn't hidden behind statistics or policy documents. It's happening right now, in real time, in places most of the world will never see.

Aid cuts and crisis

My colleague Chris Montgomery, a videographer with World Vision Canada, recently traveled to Northern Uganda to document the immediate and devastating effects of international aid cuts. His journey in this video takes me inside the walls of a rural hospital, where staff are grappling with the brutal reality of serving a vulnerable population with dwindling resources. These aren't just stories of hardship. They’re warning signs of a larger crisis unfolding across the globe.

While decision makers of these cuts bask in the limelight making headlines and soundbites, the impact of these cuts are rippling through remote communities. In Uganda, those ripples look like a lack of running water, empty medicine cabinets, laid-off medical staff, and mothers arriving at clinics only to find there's no one left to help their sick children. What was once a fragile but functioning healthcare system is now buckling under the weight of unmet needs and broken promises.

Humanitarian aid cuts leave a hospital helpless

Now, the hospital Chris visited in Northern Uganda was built in the 1960s. It has no running water. Outdated infrastructure. A building that's doing its best to hold together. Before the funding cuts, things were already tough. But now? Things are tipping into something much worse.

This hospital isn't just a building, it's where over 150 people in the region come when they need help. Pregnant mothers, kids with fevers, people with HIV looking for their meds or routine checkups. It’s the place you go when you’re in pain and hoping someone can do something. But the truth is, there's not much left for them now.

Because the funding has been cut, the hospital can't operate like it used to. Staff who used to run the HIV clinic? Gone. Outreach teams who would go into communities to test and treat people? Gone.

Another person shared how outreach used to work. They’d go out, test people, and if someone was positive, they’d get care right away. Now, that safety net is gone. They’re expecting an increase in new infections, and they’re worried some people might die from conditions that were once manageable.

People are still getting sick, still showing up, still hoping. But the help they need is disappearing. This is what happens when the world pulls back. And for the staff still trying to hold it all together, it feels like abandonment.

The HIV clinic used to be one of the core programs at the hospital. That system was saving lives. But now, those staff members have all been sent home. Just like that. No gradual wind-down. No transition plan. Just gone.

And now that entire chain is broken. That means people will fall through the cracks. Infections that could’ve been caught early will spread. People who could’ve been treated won’t be.

Refugees and victims affected by aid withdrawal

The staff in the video talked about how these weren’t just any communities they were helping. These were people who had already fled war and violence. South Sudanese refugees. Families who had already lost so much, are now losing the little support they had left. A staff member said, “We already had commitment to serve the most needy… and as a result of the aid cut, we are unable now to continue.”

The work World Vision Canada does especially in places like Uganda depends heavily on partnerships with foreign governments. That’s what allows teams to respond quickly, stay long enough to make a difference, and scale solutions that work. When those partnerships fall apart, it doesn’t just slow us down. It forces us to walk away from people who were counting on us to stay.

This isn't just about numbers on a balance sheet. It's about human lives and what happens when the safety nets meant to protect them stop completely. Chris’s footage and interviews reveal a world where needs are still present, but resources are not. In the face of disappearing aid, healthcare workers are forced to make impossible choices, and families are left without the critical services they once relied on.

This is the reality of these cuts. And it's just the beginning.

Now more than ever, these vulnerable people need your help. Click here to donate.

Long term impacts of humanitarian relief cuts

This isn’t just about one hospital or one country. It's about what happens when an entire system starts to unravel. The idea that decisions made in meeting rooms half a world away are changing the course of lives in places like Northern Uganda. The people feeling the consequences had no say in those decisions. No voice in those rooms.

It's easy to think of aid as a nice-to-have. A kind gesture. But to the people I saw in that video, it’s a lifeline. And once you’ve seen what happens when that lifeline is pulled away, you can't unsee it.

This is where we are now. Not at the end of something but at the beginning of a much deeper crisis, unless something changes. And it's not just about the money. It's about the message we send when we turn our backs on the most vulnerable.

That’s what stayed with me long after the video ended.