Protest outside GMC offices in support of climate activist doctors

Supporters of climate activist doctors gathered outside the General Medical Council committee meeting in Manchester this week to protest against what they called the ‘continued persecution of doctors who have been convicted for peaceful climate activism’.

Protesters, including health workers and patients, held banners reading ‘The GMC is failing in its duty to protect our patients from climate change’ and held placards drawing attention to the recent interim suspension of jailed climate activist GP Patrick Hart.

Two protestors undertook a silent protest within the meeting, holding a second banner which read ‘Good Medical Practice = Raising concerns about the Climate Emergency’.

Dr Hart was suspended from the medical register last month. He is currently serving a 12-month prison sentence after being found guilty of criminal damage to petrol pump screens during a climate protest at an Esso garage on the M25 in Essex.

On his sentencing, he said his non-violent action was an ‘act of care’ to draw attention to the climate crisis, which he and other climate activist doctors argue is also a health crisis. He told the sentencing judge: ‘I disrupted people as an act of care. I damaged the petrol pump screens as an act of care.’

The interim order made Dr Hart the first working doctor to be suspended from the medical register for actions relating to climate activism. Retired GPs Sarah Benn and Diana Warner have also been sanctioned for their actions.

The Manchester protest came amid an ongoing daily vigil outside the GMC’s London offices, now into its third week, where protesters are urging the regulator to do more to address climate change given its overarching duty to protect the public.

An assembly of Dr Hart’s supporters also met in Bristol on 29 March.

Meanwhile, the United Nations special rapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst, met with Dr Hart in prison and has written to the UK government to express his concern over the GP’s treatment, including hat he was denied release from prison on licence.

Mr Forst said he is ‘extremely concerned’ about Dr Hart’s treatment and urged the UK government to ‘ensure his immediate release from prison and the termination of the fitness to practice proceedings against him’.

A GMC spokesperson said: ‘Sustainability in healthcare is important and we recognise the connection, relevance, and impact on human health and the practice of individual medical professionals. We are committed to doing what we can to tackle climate change as an organisation and as a regulator have included a commitment to sustainable choices for all medical professionals in our standards for doctors, Good medical practice.

‘Our guidance is clear that, like all citizens, doctors are entitled to their own personal political opinions, and there is nothing in the standards we set that prevents them from exercising their right to lobby government, or campaign on issues. In doing so, they just need to follow the GMC’s standards of care and behaviour expected of all medical professionals.

‘When doctors’ protesting results in law-breaking, they must understand that it is their actions in breaking the law, rather than their motivations, that will be under scrutiny. Patients and the public have a high degree of trust in doctors, that trust can be put at risk when doctors fail to comply with the law.’

Those protesting in support of Dr Hart and the other climate activist doctors argue that the GMC has ‘presented no evidence to support the claim that climate activism undermines public confidence in the medical profession’.

They say that the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, while ‘nominally independent’, in practice ‘simply acts to rubber stamp any legal decisions handed down by the UK judiciary, in effect resulting in double jeopardy punishment of the doctor’.

Alice Clack a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist who supports Dr Hart, said: ‘I am extremely concerned that the GMC has failed to recognise the need to consider the cases of Dr Hart and colleagues as moral and ethical issues.

‘The actions of these brave doctors should be making them reflect on the gravity of the climate and health emergency and step into action to protect the public, rather than pursuing a harmful tick box exercise.’