Bahrain Report: The Ongoing Assault on the Health System (Physicians for Human Rights)

In April 2011, two months after the start of mass protests and a month after the regime tried to crush them with security forces backed up by outside military forces, Physicians for Human Rights issued a report, "Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients". 

A year later, two PHR investigators, Holly Atkinson and Richard Sollom returned to the Kingdom to assess the situation. They conducted 102 in-depth interviews, including patients, doctors, and government officials,  examined medical records and radiographic images, visited Salmaniya Medical Center twice, and went to an “underground clinic".

Yesterday, PHR released the findings, "Under the Gun: Ongoing Assaults on Bahrain’s Health System", summarising the politics around medical care:

PHR investigators spoke with a group of eight senior medical workers who have concluded that the Bahraini government, led by the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, sought to take over the one last ministry outside Sunni control — the Ministry of Health, which until last year was seen as a Shia stronghold.

According to two other Bahraini sources whom PHR interviewed, hardliners within the Government took advantage of the chaos of the Arab Spring, detained and convicted some of the leading Shia physicians and nurses within the health ministry, and supplanted them with Sunni partisans. Many of these physicians were chairs of medical departments at Salmaniya Hospital, who were subsequently removed from those positions of authority.

The Ministry of Health, which oversees the administration of Salmaniya Hospital, transferred other specialist physicians and nurses to medical departments outside their area of expertise.

The Ministry of Health replaced some of these department chiefs with doctors, reportedly Sunni, with far less training and experience. And although the current Minister of Health is Shia, most observers say his holding this office allows the Government to appear non-sectarian. According to the senior medical professionals PHR interviewed, the real power lies with the new Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Aisha Mubarak Bu Unek, who is Sunni. She reportedly wears a Bahraini Defense Forces military uniform when present at Salmaniya Hospital.

Such politicization of healthcare only further shreds the fabric of a nation in political turmoil. Healthcare should remain beyond politics. Today in Bahrain, those who would heal the country's wounded have become objects of persecution. Bahrain’s targeting of some of its leading medical professionals epitomizes a disturbing sectarian breach that must be addressed and mended. Dropping all politically motivated charges against each of the 48 medical workers is one way.

The Recommendations

To the Government of Bahrain:

• Drop all politically motivated charges against each of the 48 medical workers.