PATIENTS being treated at Bahrain’s main hospital have reportedly been falsely attributing their health problems to tear gas.

Senior doctors at the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) Accident and Emergency department said it had got to the stage that almost every ailment was being blamed on the police.

“It is as if there is no other cause,” one senior doctor told the GDN.

Treatment

“Whether it is cough, a bout of asthma or a heart ailment, it is supposedly due to tear gas.

“It seems if Bahrain were not to have tear-gassing, it would be a country without sickness.”

The doctor confirmed there were some genuine cases of tear gas inhalation, but most victims did not even bother to go to hospital for treatment.

“We have had pregnant women in discomfort and elderly patients with joint pains also telling us they are victims of tear gas and that is why they have problems,” he said.

“We are also aware, and security agencies will vouch for that, that scores of street violence victims are being treated on roadsides as well as in illegal clinics set up in various localities.”

The doctor said if everyone suffering from tear gas inhalation were to come to the SMC, “we would have no other job to do”.

He said the cases being reported at the department were the “usual numbers”.

“It is wrong to say these cases are due to tear gas. We have these numbers of cases anyway,” he said.

Opposition groups have blamed tear gas for the deaths of several anti-government protesters as well as people suffering from sickle cell disease or heart problems since the unrest.

But the government earlier strongly denied claims that anyone had died or suffered serious injuries as a result of the canisters it was using.

The Information Affairs Authority said there was no evidence to prove the tear gas being used by police was lethal and suggestions it could harm or kill were not backed up by any research or proof.

mandeep@gdn.com.bh