According to a report published in the Lancet for August 5, Amnesty International has found that health workers around the world face considerable political obstacles in trying to carry out their work in an ethical manner.
There are international standards and humanitarian laws governing the status of and offering protection to workers in the field of health, but many countries still place pressure on the doctors, nurses and others to curtail their activities when they involve caring for dissidents. The shape such pressure take includes denial of promotion prospects, forcible transfer to other and less desirable locations, and dismissal from posts. Death threats to workers and their families, abduction, torture and actual killing are sometimes employed.
In Myanmar (Burma), military forces have been used to suppress demonstrations by doctors and nurses campaigning to rid the country of military one-party dominance. Arrests have been made of medical professionals on the grounds that they had supported the opposition - which actually won the election of 1990, the result being disallowed by the military.
In Turkey, which is officially democratic, human rights abuses are widespread and doctors are under pressure not to report instances of torture; a tendency which has stimulated local medical practitioners to protest.
Some governments regard as illegitimate or illegal any provision of medical facilities to opponents of the regime, and doctors who are thought to be sympathetic to such dissidents, or who give them emergency treatment, may face prosecution, as in Peru in 1992 and in Turkey recently.
International concern is felt over safeguarding the right of health professionals to offer treatment to individuals they think are in need or care, irrespective of age, disability, disease, creed, ethnic origin, race, gender, nationality, political affiliation, sexual orientation or social position.
Complications may arise when wounding by a weapon may indicate that a crime has been committed and so require informing the police. The health worker may encounter an ethical dilemma in the face of what he or she may regard as inhuman laws.
The independence and integrity of health professionals needs protecting, and the World Medical Association together with human rights organisations has proposed the appointment of a United Nations special rapporteur to act as a safeguard against flagrant abuse.