Government must act to save lives of Irish trained medics in Bahrain, says National Women’s Council

Published: Monday, June 27, 2011

Press Release

The National Women's Council of Ireland has called urgently on the Irish government to intervene to protect the lives of Irish trained and other medical staff in Bahrain.

At its Annual General Meeting in Dublin yesterday [ Thursday 23rd June] the NWCI unanimously passed a motion from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

The INMO said that medical staff who provided treatment to pro-democracy demonstrators following the violent crushing by state forces of protests in March in the middle eastern state, had been charged wtih anti-state activity. President of the INMO, Sheila Dickson, said that her counterpart in Bahrain, Mrs Rula Al Saffir, remains in custody and is at risk of execution if found guilty. "Forty seven medical staff, most of them women, and many of them trained in Ireland, have been charged after they treated injured civilians," Ms Dickson told the meeting.

" Human rights entitlements, medical neutrality and the ethical responsibility of healthcare professionals must take precedence over political issues in times of conflict." Some of the medics trained in Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and some worked in Irish hospitals. One doctor has an Irish child.