Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan TD,

The Minister for Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan has stressed that the panel of assessors sent by the Irish Medical Council (IMC) to inspect the RCSI’s college in Bahrain were given a copy of the Ceartas report outlining that organisation’s perspective on the human rights situation in the Gulf State.

In 2013, Ceartas — the independent, non-profit organisation that seeks to promote human rights through legal actions — had requested the Council refrain from accrediting the RCSI’s Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-Bahrain) on the basis of ongoing human rights violations and breaches of medical ethics in the medical facilities used to teach students.

Kingram House was originally committed to carrying out the visit to Bahrain in 2012, but had postponed the trip in light of the political unrest in the country, which first erupted in February 2011. A team finally did so late last year and a report was released last December, indicating that the medical school had been accredited for a period of five years.

Speaking in the Dáil, Minister O’Sullivan said the Government had always sought to draw a clear distinction between the wider human rights situation and the involvement of Irish institutions in the education and training of Bahraini medical personnel. “In that regard, I regard the process set out under Section 88 of the [Medical Practitioners] Act as a vital part of the quality assurance architecture for medical education and training in Irish institutions, ensuring compliance with relevant national and international standards.

“Therefore, while the Government will continue to use all appropriate diplomatic avenues to express its concerns regarding the human rights situation in Bahrain, it was important to ensure that the Medical Council’s consultation with me remained focused on the matters that have been properly identified by the Medical Council under both the Act and other relevant national and international standards,” she added.

According to an appendix in the Council’s accreditation inspection report, an article by Christopher Stokes, General Director of Médecins Sans Frontières (‘Bahrain: From Hospital to Prison,’ May 17, 2011), a statement from Amnesty International (‘Bahrain, openness on human rights, but serious concerns remain,’ May 19, 2014), and the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (November 23, 2011) were all included as background documents for the assessment team.

In its report, Ceartas said the Council should, on any site visit, investigate and consider allegations of torture and other forms of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” associated with facilities used for clinical tuition by the RCSI-Bahrain, as required by Irish and international law.

Likewise, it had claimed the Council was bound by law to take into consideration the “various and numerous allegations of discrimination, violations of the rights to education and work, and the violations of medical ethics in medical facilities affiliated with RCSI-Bahrain”.

The Minister for Education expressed her expectation that the Council would have had regard to all of the information relevant to its consideration of national and international standards, including relevant legislation and the World Federation for Medical Education’s (WFME) Standards in Basic Medical Education.

She also noted her expectation that appropriate engagement would have taken place with the “wider range of stakeholders” envisaged by the WFME in its Global Standards for Quality Improvement in Medical Education: European Specification, including representatives of “academic staff, students, the community, education and health care authorities, professional organisations and postgraduate educators”.

See article by Prof Eoin O’Brien here

dara.gantly@imt.ie