Bahraini.TV

Doctors reject same-sex call

by mahmood on 13/04/08 at 11:42 am · email  · print  

A demand by MPs that medical staff be allowed to treat only patients of the same sex has been dismissed as “preposterous” by a top official.

Doctors would go to court to block such a move if necessary, said another leading doctor.

It would be a step that would damage medical services, said Salmaniya Medical Centre chief of medical staff Dr Adel Al Jishi. He was reacting to an urgent proposal put to parliament on Tuesday by the Al Wefaq bloc.

The proposal, to be discussed by parliament’s services committee, also says that bodies in the mortuary should only be handled by staff of the same sex as the deceased.

The idea is “preposterous” and would be very difficult to implement for medical staff, said Dr Al Jishi.

“Not only that, here we are, trying all the time to take the country forward on the path of progress and improve our medical services and facilities and we suddenly have a proposal that would only take us backwards,” he told the GDN.

“This is something that has not been implemented anywhere in the world, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, which are the two most ‘hard-line’ states when it comes to segregation of men and women.”

He said the numbers of patients coming into the SMC, were equally divided between men and women. “However, when it comes to physicians and surgeons, the men more than twice outnumber the women,” said Dr Al Jishi. He said only in gynaecology, were there more women than men.

Bahrain Medical Society president Dr Abdulla Al Ajmi said, “Are we talking about getting rid of our male doctors and employing more women?”

Worldwide, there are more male than female doctors and Bahrain is not an exception.”

He said the proposal would amount to discrimination against doctors on the basis of their gender. “That would not be allowed and we would go to court if we have to,” he said.