Several South African doctors are considering taking action to force the Health Professions Council to initiate an investigation into the conduct of the doctor who headed up the apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme.
They are also asking the council, which is the statutory body governing the medical, dental, and other health professions, to take action against a list of doctors implicated in unethical conduct in testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Dr Wouter Basson is a cardiologist who is being tried for crimes associated with his role at the head of the programme. These crimes include murder, fraud, drug manufacturing, and drug dealing.
Dr Basson refused to give full testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and did not apply for amnesty; these actions opened the way for the criminal prosecution. He has retained his job in the public health sector as a cardiologist, at least until the outcome of the trial is known.
The Health Professions Council has not begun an inquiry into his conduct, claiming instead that it would wait for the criminal trial to end because it would be difficult to get witnesses until that time.
The South African Medical Association, the voluntary professional association for doctors, has allowed Dr Basson to remain a member but has initiated an investigation into his membership. It was only recently brought to public attention that Dr Basson was still registered to practise.
Among those who have now complained to the council is Professor Joe Veriava, who was instrumental, with a handful of other doctors, in taking the council to court to compel it to inquire into the death of the political activist Steven Biko.
Up until that time the council had refused to take action against the doctors who attended to Mr Biko after he was fatally assaulted while in police custody. Two doctors have complained to the council and have subsequently received anonymous death threats.
Now a group of doctors from the Health and Human Rights Project affiliated with the University of Cape Town is trying to encourage the council to pay more attention to Dr Basson’s case. According to Leslie London, associate professor in the university’s community health department, many doctors have reacted with anger to the apparent inertia of the council. They had, he said, previously asked the council to look into the conduct of the doctors named at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission but had received no reply.
Figure.
AP PHOTO/BURHAN OZBILICI
Dr Wouter Basson, former head of the South African army”s chemical weapons project, still practises as a doctor