Doctors in Sheffield and throughout the country have been outraged by the decision of the General Medical Council (GMC) to suspend Dr Sarah Benn for 5 months.
A GP with over 30 years of NHS service, she is the first doctor to face a tribunal due to climate action and was referred for disciplinary proceedings because she’d been imprisoned for 32 days. Her crime was to hold up a sign outside an oil refinery. Unfortunately, this broke a private injunction, so was punished severely, just as tree protesters in Sheffield were threatened when the Council took out an injunction to stop them from protesting.
The GMC’s twitter post stated that “our fitness to practise investigations consider cases which are referred to us and where doctors have broken the law, not their motivations for doing so.” However, their own Sustainability policy identifies four key principles which underpin sustainable clinical practice.
- Prevention of ill health.
- Patient empowerment.
- Lean Pathways/service delivery.
- Low carbon alternatives.
Dr Sarah’s primary motivation in carrying out the action she took was the prevention of ill health.
In a video, Dr Benn eloquently described her motivation for breaking the law.
“If the planet were my patient at the moment I would be about as concerned as I could be about their ability to pull through. I would probably be making some comforting noises to them like okay we’re here, it’s going to be alright, just hang on in there, while putting my utmost energy into doing whatever I could to save them, to stop what was doing the harm and to put in immediate resuscitation measures. But perhaps expecting the worst and asking someone to call the family and say “This is really bad, you need to get here, it is that bad”.
A patient petition in support of doctors like Sarah, who feel morally compelled to protect public health by demanding action on the climate and ecological crisis has received more than 5000 signatures.
Dr Jeremy Wight (Sheffield Director of Public Health, 2006 – 2015) said
“I think the action of the GMC in this matter is absurd. If, as has been reported, the rationale for their decision was that in their view the public would not condone breaking the law in the repeated way in which Dr Benn did, then they are surely asking themselves the wrong question. It doesn’t matter if the public would or would not condone the law-breaking. What matters is whether the public has lost trust in her in her role as a doctor, or in the medical profession more widely. That is surely not the case.
The climate emergency is by far the biggest threat to health that we face. If doctors who protest about lack of action to address it are to be sanctioned by our own professional body, then the GMC has clearly lost the plot.”
Sheffield retired doctor, medical educator and coach Mike Tomson said
“I was sad and angry when I heard that Sarah Benn had been suspended from practice for 5 months by the GMC’s tribunal. She is a GP who has put the safety of us all above her own comfort and for that, I respect her enormously.
Over the last 4 years I and others have been asking the GMC to be clear that it is appropriate to campaign non-violently for public safety against the enormous threat and power from oil and gas companies and the GMC has failed to provide either guidance or clarity. It is shameful that the outcome is that now the GMC like Chamberlain (and the Munich papers) is on the wrong side of history. Worldwide 6 million people die a year from air pollution ( much of it from oil, coal and gas), the biggest preventable, environmental cause of death. (tobacco causes 8.5million). We need action on the causes, not penalisation of those who highlight this blight.”
Dr Bing Jones, a retired fellow doctor said:
“I have known Sarah for years and cannot imagine a more honourable person. She has the courage and moral conviction to act where others only talk. She is bravely telling us that climate collapse means health care collapse. The medical profession should be the loudest voice highlighting government climate failure, yet they are not. It is a disgrace that the GMC has sanctioned one of the few doctors who is unwilling to stay comfortably silent on the single biggest issue of our time.”
Jillian Creasy, who is a retired GP, said,
“Dr Benn has broken the law and spent time in prison, but her motivation is entirely honourable. She objected to burning fossil fuels because it affects our health locally (through air pollution) and will lead to climate collapse, which is already causing disease and death across the world. The General Medical Council should be supporting, not punishing, doctors who want to protect others.”
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change said
“Many in the GMC must recognise that they are finding themselves on the wrong side of history. As UKHACC has pointed out to the chair and chief executive of the GMC, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Pope, and the King have all expressed forcefully their anxiety that the world is heading to catastrophe because of damage to nature and the climate and that the responses by world leaders are inadequate…
…It is in these exceptional circumstances that doctors committed to public health have resorted to actions judged criminal. As with other activists like the suffragettes, history will support the minority who took direct action to raise awareness of the consequences of our unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels and be critical of the majority who either passively accepted the status quo or condemned the activists…
…UKHACC calls on the GMC to recognise its predicament and seek all possible ways—including if necessary changes to the Medical Act—to avoid removing the livelihood of doctors who are concerned and courageous enough to break what they see as immoral laws.“
Dr Fiona Godlee, Former editor of the British Medical Journal said “This principled and courageous doctor has already put her own liberty on the line to raise the alarm on what is recognised to be the greatest threat to our health and survival. If she and others in the future lose their right to practise, who wins? Certainly not patients.”
The Doctor’s Association UK said
“ Governments, including the UK Government, and organisations, including the GMC, are failing to act quickly and effectively enough to protect global patient safety. Their response, despite countless warnings from scientists across the globe, is not enough, and we are now in a position of annual life-threatening extreme weather events. Dr Sarah Benn, we believe, is on the right side of history, and we ask the GMC and the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, can you say the same?
Given the evidence on climate change and its health impacts, we strongly believe that peaceful protest should not be viewed as condemnable professional misconduct – but as commendable public health advocacy.”
I urge anyone who feels that Sarah Benn is acting for us all and the General Medical Council is wrong to discipline her, to sign this petition https://www.change.org/p/help-medical-professionals-keep-their-jobs-while-acting-on-the-climate-crisis?source_location=search and contact the GMC https://www.gmc-uk.org/contact-us .
Tell the Truth Sheffield 