New BMA book highlights human rights abuses
The BMA has criticised the
hardening attitude to asylum
seekers in Britain in its new
handbook on human rights for
doctors.
In The Medical Profession and
Human Rights: Handbook for a
Changing Agenda the association
criticises the way that the dispersal
system has been managed,
arguing this cuts asylum seekers
off from support and advice
from existing refugee groups.
Many primary care doctors are
struggling to cope with vulnerable
people who arrive without
warning, planning, or language
support, it says. And they are
confronted with people claiming
to have suffered torture, rape, or
severe physical and psychological
trauma.
"Human rights are a live
issue for doctors in the United
Kingdom as well as for our colleagues
working in difficult or
oppressive circumstances overseas,"
said Dr Vivienne
Nathanson, head of policy and
research at the BMA.
A man cleans a skull near a mass grave at a torture camp that was run by the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia in
the 1970s. Between one and two million people were tortured and murdered under the
leadership of Pol Pot (AP PHOTO/JEFF WIDENER)
Some of the problems faced
by British doctors outlined in
the book have already been
raised by the BMA with the government.
These include the risk
to public health if entrants do
not receive adequate health
screening; the need for time for
doctors to build up trust with
survivors of trauma and torture;
and the much higher incidence
of mental health problems.
The handbook is designed
for international as well as
domestic audiences and looks at
the wide variety of human rights
violations that doctors may
encounter and at practical steps
that doctors can take to prevent,
detect, deter, and publicise
abuse. The BMA believes that
nearly every violation of human
rights is relevant to medicine
because all have a negative
impact on human health. Doctors
may be the only independent
observers who see what is
going on in a prison, detention
centre, or war zone.
The book covers medical
involvement in torture and judicial
executions; neglect or abuse
in institutions; the treatment of
prisoners; trafficking in women
and children; unethical
research; and the use of biological
and chemical weapons.
The head of the BMA's
ethics department and one of
the book's authors, Ann Sommerville,
said: "The book is both
a teaching tool for the new generation
of medical students and
a practical guide for doctors who
may be confronted with human
rights abuses at home or overseas."
More than 300 copies of the
book will be sent free to medical
school libraries in developing
countries, mainly in Asia and
Africa. It will also be sent to
every national medical association.
The BMA hopes that many
of the recommendations will be
debated at next month's meeting
of the World Medical Association
in Switzerland.
The Medical Profession and Human
Rights: Handbook for a Changing
Agenda is published by Zed Books,
price £18.95. For a full review see
next month's issue.
Linda Beecham, BMJ
studentBMJ 2001;09:171-216 June ISSN 0966-6494
