Britain’s medical regulator plans to apologize to gay doctors who were sacked because of their sexuality, The Guardian has revealed.
The General Medical Council will issue a formal apology to doctors it investigated, sanctioned, warned or banned from practicing because of convictions under now-repealed laws criminalizing male homosexuality. is.
Founded in 1858, the GMC is one of the world’s oldest medical authorities and is the independent regulatory body for doctors working in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has the power to initiate an investigation to ultimately determine whether a doctor can continue treating a patient.
The GMC launched action between 1899 and 1994 to take action against at least 40 male doctors on the grounds of their sexuality, according to the results of a recent internal investigation by the GMC. As a result, at least eight people were removed from the medical register and unable to practice medicine again.
GMC chief executive Charlie Massey said the findings of the inquiry were “shocking” and apologized for the damage caused to doctors’ professional and personal lives.
“As a regulator, we have taken action against male doctors who have been found guilty of having or attempting to have consensual sex with other men,” he said. “We have had a negative impact on our careers, and in some cases ended them. For that we would like to apologize.”
In a statement on Thursday, the GMC will say it “genuinely regrets” the action taken against doctors found guilty under homophobia legislation, which is now seen as unjust. .
In her apology, GMC chair Professor Dame Carey McEwen said: “Homophobic laws and attitudes in place since the 1980s have caused personal and professional harm.
“We compounded that harm by taking additional regulatory measures against medical registrants. In some cases, it meant the end of practitioners’ careers. We are truly sorry for this. I don’t think so.”
GMC archivists worked with the regulator’s LGBTQ+ staff network to search records of cases in which doctors with sexuality-based convictions underwent fitness to litigate cases.
The Sexual Offenses Act decriminalized private homosexual acts between men over the age of 21 in England and Wales in 1967. This law was not amended until 1980 in Scotland and 1982 in Northern Ireland.
At least 40 cases were found. As a result, eight doctors were fired. The last known erasure was in 1966, but decades later other doctors are still being investigated or given warnings over their sexual orientation.
“It’s shocking that in the 1990s we were still considering lawsuits and sanctions against doctors,” Massey said. “Even if no regulatory action had been taken, the stress of being sued by the GMC and having your sexual orientation criticized would have been significant.”
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Mr McEwen admitted the GMC did not have an exact total of how many doctors had been disciplined or dismissed because of their sexuality. “We don’t know the true number of doctors who have taken this historic step,” she says.
Dr Duncan McGregor, from Grad, the association of LGBTQ+ doctors and dentists, welcomed the apology from the GMC.
“The profound impact these actions had on their lives cannot be overstated,” he says. “This apology is an important step toward righting past wrongs, and while it cannot undo the hurt and damage done to our doctors, it is important to acknowledge past injustices.”
Although the threat of sexuality being removed from medical registers is no longer there, prejudice against LGBTQ+ health workers continues to this day, McGregor warned.
“This apology represents progress toward justice for those affected by historic homophobic laws and progress for the LGBTQ+ community. I hope it brings you some comfort.”
Mr McGregor said it was particularly important to recognize that this initiative came from within the GMC. “We would like to thank the members of GMC’s LGBTQ+ staff network for their hard work in making this apology possible.”
McEwen acknowledged that much still needs to be done to support LGBTQ+ doctors and patients. “We all have a role to play in this,” she said. “As a regulator and an employer, we are committed to championing equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do.”
