KARACHI: Bioethics be made part of curricula: SIUT moot
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 9: Speakers at a seminar on Saturday underlined the need to include the multi-disciplinary subject of bioethics in the medical curricula, adding that doing so would help improve medical care in the country.
Speaking at the concluding session of the five-day international seminar titled “Foundations of moral thought: From Greek to contemporary bioethics,’’ organized by the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), they said the discipline of bioethics was particularly needed in developing countries like Pakistan.
They said the discipline had come into being and had developed largely because traditional codes, such as the Hippocratic Oath, could no longer resolve the ethical dilemmas emanating from recent advances in medical science. Currently, almost all the centres of bioethics were situated in the developed countries and the flow of information was one-sided, that is from the West to the East.
They said it was time for Pakistan to assume a leadership role vis-à-vis the Muslim perspectives on bioethics. They expressed the hope that the country would soon formulate laws dealing with organ donation and transplantation following which many lives would be saved.
The speakers were of the opinion that Pakistan was getting a bad name internationally due to the underground selling and buying of organs. Certain medical teams, they added, were exploiting the poor in an effort to make a quick buck. They also expressed the hope that the proposed International Centre of Bioethics Pakistan (ICBP) would be established shortly at Karachi University.
Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi, the director of SIUT, said access to healthcare was one of the biggest ethical issues confronting the developing countries. In Pakistan, he pointed out, only about 7 per cent of the patients in need of dialysis actually had access to facilities where they could be dialyzed.
In countries like Pakistan, where more than 40 per cent of the population eked an existence below the poverty line, quality medical care often became a luxury. The professor suggested that health allocations in the budget be increased to at least 3 of the GNP.
Similarly, the government-run health facilities should be strengthened, with simultaneous private participation to ensure good governance. Prof Rizvi said the SIUT represented a good example of community participation and was providing free care to more than 350,000 patients annually.
The director of SIUT said many Islamic countries, including Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Bangladesh — had adopted the brain death law. But, it was yet to be formulated in Pakistan.
Prof Haytham Al-Khayat, a policy adviser of the World Health Organization, said CBEC was a valuable addition as far as the bioethics activities in the region was concerned. He said he was sure that CBEC would facility the endeavours being made in this regard at the WHO’s regional headquarters.
Prof Jonathan Moreno of the University of Virginia said inclusion of the word “culture’’ in CBEC’s name was particularly important when viewed from the regional perspective. He said he was confident that the centre would help bring about better understanding in bioethics internationally, besides promoting dialogue on problems of universal nature.
Earlier, Prof Farhat Moazam of CBEC said her centre, the first of its kind in the country, was set up in October with the primary goal of serving as a national resource in bioethics. She said the centre sought to safeguard interests of the public.
She said Pakistan was endowed with rich cultural traditions and religious values. The centre would be carrying
out original research on the influence of these factors on the practice of medicine and research.
Some 40 professionals — including five from Turkey, Iran, UAE, and Egypt —participated in the seminar and intensive course. Prof Aziz Sachedina and Jonathan Moreno of the University of Virginia, Prof Haytham Al-Khayat of WHO, Prof Renee Fox of the University of Pennsylvania, Prof Judith Swazey of the University of Boston, Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi of SIUT, Javed Ghamidi of the Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences, Lahore, Prof Manzoor Ahmad of the Usmania Institute of Technology, Karachi, and Prof Farhat Moazam and Dr Amir Jaferey of CBEC were among the speakers.
The factor which set the five-day event apart from others of similar nature was the detailed discussion of Islamic discourses on issues like Shariat, Fiqh, brain death and women, according to the organizers.
The event opened with deliberations on the Greek origins of western moral thought. The speaker and facilitator of this part of the event was Prof Manzoor Ahmed.
On the second and third days issues in Islamic concepts of morality were discussed at length. Leading discussions during this part, Javed Ghamidi and Prof Aziz Sachedina spoke of the need to separate what was in the Holy Quran and Sunnat from what was Fiqh. They were of the view that treating what was mentioned in the Fiqh as part of Shariat could lead to serious problems as Ijma could not be undertaken properly in such a situation.
Leading the discussion on the status of women in Islam, Prof Haytham Al-Khayat recounted almost all the privileges which had been granted to Muslim women in the Holy Quran and Shariat. During the caliphate of Hazrat Umer, he added, women were giving important positions, making it clear that until then women were accorded the same respect as men.
On the last two days Profs Judith Swazey, Jonathan Moreno and Renee Fox described the western and contemporary concepts of bioethics.
