Expert hits out at ill-treatment claims in Bahrain
Manama, April 13, 2014
One of the world's leading medical professors has hit out at claims made by an Irish rights group that doctors were ill-treated in Bahraini hospitals during 2011 unrest.
Former chairman of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-MUB) and Professor of Medicine Jim Finucane dismissed the claims to a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection in Dublin, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.
He denied torture occurred in Bahraini hospitals between 2008 and 2013.
The Irish Lawyers for Human Rights group, Ceartas, claimed there was a "hostile environment", in hospitals that violated medical neutrality since Bahrain's unrest.
"I was in these hospitals every working day for the five years that I worked there," Prof Finucane was quoted as saying by the Irish Medical Times.
"It is inconceivable that individuals were tortured within the precincts of these hospitals, so I can't believe there is any basis for that very serious allegation."
He was responding to calls for Irish authorities not to accredit RCSI-MUB and said an evaluation of the facility's suitability for accreditation was "long overdue".
"We had been promised it and planned for it two years ago," he said.
"It's a matter of considerable concern to my colleagues and students that I left [behind] in July of last year." - TradeArabia News Service
