Guantanamo Bay Detention Center currently houses 166 men. All of them are there because they are believed to be threats to the national security of the United States. Few have been formally charged with crimes. In February, several detainees began protesting their detainment by participating in a hunger strike. Earlier this month, as many as 106 prisoners were participating in the hunger strike. In order to prevent any of the detainees from starving to death, the Department of Defense issued orders for the medical staff to forcibly insert feeding tubes into the hunger strikers via their nasal passages. Currently, 44 prisoners undergo this procedure twice a day.
Mos Def participated in a voluntary demonstration to illustrate the gruesome nature of this practice. (Thank you, Divya K. for telling me about this video.) He asked to stop the procedure mid-way because he could not tolerate the pain.
Mos Def participated in a voluntary demonstration to illustrate the gruesome nature of this practice. (Thank you, Divya K. for telling me about this video.) He asked to stop the procedure mid-way because he could not tolerate the pain.
This video did not make the medical staff at Guantanamo happy. The medics attest that the feeding process is not that bad, and that nobody cries or vomits. One of the nurses is so upset with this YouTube stunt that he went as far as telling Reuters that he was going to delete Mos Def off of his iPod.
After thinking about their comments for a moment, one begins to realize that everyone involved in force-feeding is numbing themselves to the harsh reality of the procedure. The prisoners have grown accustomed to the painful and uncomfortable nature of the procedure. The medical personnel don't want to acknowledge any of the core ethics or peripheral implications of their actions. They justify the force-feeding by convincing themselves that they are providing a benefit to the prisoners by keeping them alive.
I'm going to take a moment to say that I don't mean to be disparaging towards military medical personnel who risk their own personal safety to provide for the medical care of American troops and local populations where they are stationed. The medics at Guantanamo are following orders from the DOD. They have no choice but to carry out the procedures they were ordered to perform.
My point is that no healthcare provider should be carrying out this procedure. An editorial written in NEJM explains the ethics behind this more eloquently than I ever could. The supporting evidence of Annas' argument and other medical groups' opposition to force feeding are existing medical ethical guidelines, peaceful nature of hunger strikes, and role of medical personnel in carrying out political will of the government.
I didn't start to pay attention to how healthcare is delivered in the American penal system until I listened to my friend, Jeremy Levenson's senior thesis presentation about the role of physicians in the Attica Prison Revolt of 1973. The history of what happened in Attica is complex, and I don't want oversimplify the facts, but basically what happened is that prisoners began to protest the inhumane conditions of the upstate New York prison, and successfully overpowered the guards and revolted. The uprising was met with with bullets from the state, and most of the injured prisoners did not receive proper medical attention. Doctors were not sent in because of obvious safety concerns, but Jeremy's thesis points out that the prisoners called for help, and that there were a handful of physicians that wanted to go in to deliver medical care, but were not allowed to.
As I reflect on the central question that Jeremy's thesis addressed, which was "Where were doctors when thousands were injured inside the prison gates of Attica?" and juxtapose the role of medical personnel in Guantanamo, the necessity of doctors to function independently of the state becomes abundantly clear. In Guantanamo, medical personnel are being used to maintain the indefinite and unjust detention of unconvicted persons. In Attica, doctors were prohibited from treating many wounded prisoners and permitted over two-dozen prisoners to die due to neglect.
Despite their past actions, every prisoner is a human being. Doctors should have no active or passive role in reinforcing the power of the state to dehumanize human beings.
After thinking about their comments for a moment, one begins to realize that everyone involved in force-feeding is numbing themselves to the harsh reality of the procedure. The prisoners have grown accustomed to the painful and uncomfortable nature of the procedure. The medical personnel don't want to acknowledge any of the core ethics or peripheral implications of their actions. They justify the force-feeding by convincing themselves that they are providing a benefit to the prisoners by keeping them alive.
I'm going to take a moment to say that I don't mean to be disparaging towards military medical personnel who risk their own personal safety to provide for the medical care of American troops and local populations where they are stationed. The medics at Guantanamo are following orders from the DOD. They have no choice but to carry out the procedures they were ordered to perform.
My point is that no healthcare provider should be carrying out this procedure. An editorial written in NEJM explains the ethics behind this more eloquently than I ever could. The supporting evidence of Annas' argument and other medical groups' opposition to force feeding are existing medical ethical guidelines, peaceful nature of hunger strikes, and role of medical personnel in carrying out political will of the government.
I didn't start to pay attention to how healthcare is delivered in the American penal system until I listened to my friend, Jeremy Levenson's senior thesis presentation about the role of physicians in the Attica Prison Revolt of 1973. The history of what happened in Attica is complex, and I don't want oversimplify the facts, but basically what happened is that prisoners began to protest the inhumane conditions of the upstate New York prison, and successfully overpowered the guards and revolted. The uprising was met with with bullets from the state, and most of the injured prisoners did not receive proper medical attention. Doctors were not sent in because of obvious safety concerns, but Jeremy's thesis points out that the prisoners called for help, and that there were a handful of physicians that wanted to go in to deliver medical care, but were not allowed to.
As I reflect on the central question that Jeremy's thesis addressed, which was "Where were doctors when thousands were injured inside the prison gates of Attica?" and juxtapose the role of medical personnel in Guantanamo, the necessity of doctors to function independently of the state becomes abundantly clear. In Guantanamo, medical personnel are being used to maintain the indefinite and unjust detention of unconvicted persons. In Attica, doctors were prohibited from treating many wounded prisoners and permitted over two-dozen prisoners to die due to neglect.
Despite their past actions, every prisoner is a human being. Doctors should have no active or passive role in reinforcing the power of the state to dehumanize human beings.