Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
September 25, 1996
Commissioner Dr Wendy Orr, has been invited to act as a consultant on medical ethics to the British Medical Association.
Dr Orr, the convenor of the Western/Northern Cape office of the TRC and deputy chairperson of the Commission's Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee, will travel to England on 25 October for a week of discussions with the BMA. The invitation follows a conference on Torture last year in Cape Town where the BMA's report Medicine Betrayed on ethical principles for health workers and doctors collusion in somehuman rights violations was discussed.
Dr Orr will act as a consultant on a follow-up report on how doctors can be supported to speak out about violations and how they can prevent them. She will make a particular input on doctors in prisons. In 1985 she lodged a successful application against the then minister of Law and Order to stop detainees being tortured. Dr Orr sits on the Medical Association of South Africas Ethics Committee to which she was elected earlier this year.
During her visit to London she will also have discussions with Amnesty International to discuss their work around the medical profession and in particular education to make doctors and health workers better protectors of human rights.
These discussions will be fed into a workshop planned by the TRC for medical and health workers on a process which will culminate in submissions form the health care sector to the TRC. The workshop is scheduled for 23 November and is expected to be attended by major players in the health field. Dr Orr believes these discussions will boost the TRC's international links as well as inform and enrich the South African process.
Western and Northern Cape office Tel: 021-245161/0824588461 Fax: 021-245225
Issued by the Media Liaison Department, Christelle Terreblanche - 0824588461.