Ceartas an Irish lawyers' human rights organisation, has called on the Irish Medical Council (IMC) not to approve the Bahrain medical facility of the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI). This is following two years of unrest and human rights violations in the country. RCSI-Bahrain offers an Irish degree programme which is certified by the Irish Medical Council. The IMC is a public body that is required to uphold the standards of the World Federation for Medical Education. An obligatory site visit was due to be carried out by the IMC in RCSI-Bahrain in 2011, but it was postponed due to civil unrest.
In February 2011, pro-democracy protests began in Bahrain's capital city of Manama. These protests called for free speech, democracy and human rights. The Bahraini Government and a Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council force responded with force which led to many injuries and deaths. Medical personnel and facilities became involved in the protests due to the strict orders on medics not to treat protesters. A number of medical professionals, including three who had trained at the RCSI in Dublin, were arrested, detained, and convicted before a military tribunal in 2011. Dr Ali Al-Ekri, an Irish trained doctor is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.
The Ceartas report, ‘Human Rights Standards and the Accreditation of RCSI-Bahrain’, was submitted to the Irish Medical Council on 30 May. It highlights the past and on-going violations of rights within Bahraini hospital facilities. The report sets out a number of recommendations for the IMC, including:
· IMC should not accredit RSCI-Bahrain on the basis of ongoing human rights violation;
· If IMC goes ahead with the site visit, it should investigate and consider allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
· Consult with relevant Ministers when deciding on accrediting an education programme which is integrated with health systems connected to torture and discriminatory conduct in the provision of health care and employment of medical staff.
Ceartas note that accreditation of the RCSI-Bahrain programme runs the risk of validating the current practices in Bahrain. Gearóid Ó Cuinn, co-director of Ceartas said, “Our report shows how RCSI-Bahrain is sending its students to be trained in militarised hospital facilities where human rights groups continue to report how patients are subject to ill-treatment and, in some cases, torture.” The RCSI has said that it could not respond until it had examined the report.
Click here to read a blog post from Ceartas about the issue.
Click here to read an article from the Irish Times, here from the Irish Independent and here from the BBC.