Q and O links to an article in the Lancet which suggests that it is an “International Crime” to recruit doctors from third world countries:
Doctors, apparently, give up their rights when they take the Hippocratic Oath, apparently. Instead, they create a ‘right” on the part of the local community to demand their services, and restrict their movement out of the country. And it’s a “crime” to actively recruit those doctors because it causes “social alarm”.
The Lancet’s reasoning is this:
Although the active recruitment of health workers from developing countries may lack the heinous intent of other crimes covered under international law, the resulting dilapidation of health infrastructure contributes to a measurable and foreseeable public-health crisis. There is now substantial evidence of state and organisational involvement in active recruitment of health workers from developing to developed nations.
There is no doubt that this situation is a very important violation of the human rights of people in Africa. In recent years, international law has developed the notion of international crime to strengthen the accountability of individuals for serious violations. One indication of the gravity of acts and that they deserve treatment as international crimes that has been developed by the International Criminal Court is that they create social alarm. Active recruitment of health workers from African countries is a systematic and widespread problem throughout Africa and a cause of social alarm: the practice should, therefore, be viewed as an international crime.
That’s very interesting. The UK has subjected itself to the ICC, and so has Canada. Both of these countries have systematic and widespread problems with rationing medical care, which is certainly a cause of social alarm. I wonder if the Lancet will at some point advocate allowing the ICC to prosecute the NHS and individual doctors for failing to immediately provide care to everyone who asks for it. The UK already has serious problems with wait times and is trying to force doctors to extend working hours.
And if causing “social alarm” is a serious violation that subjects a person to prosecution by the ICC, it will be a grave day indeed for Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and Paris Hilton if the U.S. ever signs on.
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