Event: New Centre to Tackle Key Bioethical Issues in South Africa
Date: Constituition Hill, Johannesburg, 07 February 2007
With the increasing number of complaints against healthcare practitioners in South Africa and the rising number of biomedical ethical issues being brought to the fore, there is a necessity for patients and citizens to become conscious of their human and ethical rights in this regard. More importantly, there is a need to educate researchers, scientists and medical practitioners about the ethical issues which may arise in their day-to-day interactions with patients.
Should a person suffering from XDR-TB be incarcerated against his/her will? Should the individual good be placed above the public good where resource constraints dictate particular circumstances for patients? What are the ethics around human or therapeutic cloning in South Africa? What are the rights of participants in clinical trials in a developing country? These are just some of the current bioethical issues brought to the public arena in recent months.
In recognising the need to protect patients and to ensure that healthcare practitioners practice from a moral high ground, the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits University has established the first fully-fledged Centre for Bioethics in the country. The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics will be launched officially on February 8 at the Women’s Prison Atrium, Constitution Hill, from 6 - 9pm.
Steve Biko’s murder in detention, compounded by the willful negligence of the doctors in failing to care for him and their subsequent collusion in covering up the cause of his death, marked a low point in the ethical and human rights standards of the medical profession in South Africa. As such, Biko’s name is closely identified with the unethical practice of medicine in South Africa and consequently his legacy in medicine today echoes much of the dilemmas and complexities that medical practitioners encounter in the execution of their duties.
Prof. Ames Dhai, Director at the Centre says: “Globally, both bioethics and human rights have become prominent and academically rigorous professional disciplines. Regrettably, South Africa has not kept pace with this global development of the disciplines. It is specifically with this view that the Centre seeks to entrench bioethics and human rights as a core feature in health sciences education and training.”
The Centre will achieve its goals through academic training, by advising health providers on policy matters, by providing an ethics consultation service to academic hospitals and primary healthcare clinics, through advising NGOs and community groups on healthcare issues, developing community outreach and social responsibility programmes and raising awareness through the media. There will be a natural association between the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics and the National Human Research Ethics Committee (NHREC).
“It is important for medical practitioners to be able to recognise and deal effectively with the unavoidable ethical dimensions of their practice. This need is particularly acute at present where recent biotechnological advances have resulted in new and extraordinary medical possibilities. Further, there is a growing moral uncertainty within society at large and an increasing variety of divergence going beyond basic moral views”.
The media is invited to attend this memorable occasion for the Faculty of Health Science as it consolidates its 40 year history in ethics. Guest speakers for the evening include Nkosinathi Biko, Prof. Barney Pityana (a former friend of Biko), Prof. Joe Veriava (a human rights activist) and Prof. Peter Cleaton-Jones (Chairman of the Human Research Ethics Committee - Medical).
06 February 2007
Article sourced from http://web.wits.ac.za/NewsRoom/NewsItems/BioethicsCentre.htm
Medical Ethics for Modern Age: N Barney Pityana (click to read this pdf)
© Copyright 2006, Steve Biko Foundation
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