Discovery and Devastation

I disliked today. It is one of the days when I discovered that the shallow person I had been discussing whistleblowing issues with, was actually the man who reigned at the BMA while my friends were being slaughtered in 2004. It is something that shocked me.

I have a detailed collection of medicopolitics history - from the BMA's Viagra fad to their freemasonry connections. One of the links in my stash was this Times article. If you blinked, you missed it. This was the intro to the Times piece

"THE British Medical Association has reached a settlement with five doctors who accused it of racial discrimination. The settlement, reached at the start of what could have been a four-week hearing in Manchester, involves paying an aggregate of £130,000 to the doctors without admitting liability"

One of the five doctors was my good friend Dr Vaidya. Vaidya has struggled really hard following his whistleblowing in Lincolnshire. If we fast forward time, we discover where the lack of representation by the BMA led to. It is just sad to watch my friend fight one battle after another with his hair turning grey. I wrote about his last win against the GMC who were trying to skin him alive sometime ago. Unknown to the GMC, I was the advisor on that case. Vaidya is a brave guy - braver than me, with more stamina. Vaidya has been less fortunate than some of us because his legitimate concerns raised at the GMC were neglected by none other than Dr Brian Keighley. At the time he was a GMC screener and of course has always had connections with the BMA.

What concerns me is whether our friend Brian Keighley, who eats whistleblowers for a living, declared his links to the BMA, while screening Vaidya's complaints out. Of course, declaration would have been vital since he may have been doing the BMA's dirty work for them during this period of dispute. It is this screening out of complaints that eventually got Vaidya mobbed. The GMC's case against him was a mess from start to finish. This is how matters spiral when the BMA fails to represent properly. It happened to me, it happened to my friends.

What bothered me the most  was Professor Brian Jarman . I found him to be shallow but reasonable. He  reigned as President of the BMA in the year of settlement of the above cases. What struck me is that after discussing many issues with the Ex Pres,  I discovered that Jarman did not lift a finger for the doctors who suffered badly at the hands of the BMA.

When confronted, Jarman told me that Presidents did not have responsibility for such things. I then asked him whether the position was merely cosmetic. He then told me that my analysis was complete nonsense. Well, his website lists him as the Pres on the same date as the settlement for the doctors. As it was all over the media, it was highly unlikely that our Ex Pres would not have been aware of it. My question was, what do people in the establishment do when they watch their fellow colleague sink. In Jarman's case, he walks away. This is completely alien to me yet it happens with establishment figures?. They are often terribly unhelpful, self-orientated and toxic. It is this toxicity that makes me ill. I have seen it many times in the past.

Of course, Jarman purports to back the BMA's reformed character of supporting whistleblowers. I was gutted to see that he had simply walked away and left the doctors described above to sink - one of them was a whistleblower.  Jarman would say that this is an "individual" case and isn't relevant. All cases are relevant. We cannot all believe the BMA's propaganda by default. We need to look at the history of how many doctors they failed - not only the ethnic minority, whistleblowers but also the doctors involved in the  MMC fiasco. We need to consider how many senior members of our profession have a conscience.

I had no intention of writing about my dealings with Jarman but I was simply shocked at this revelation ie that someone as President of an organisation can remain tightlipped about such atrocities. They can watch the devastation caused to doctors' lives yet say nothing.

All this time, I discovered that I had been speaking to a man who was the establishment, who had no concern or empathy for anyone but himself. I had to stop communication only because my conscience could not take it anymore. I felt physically sick.  I had been discussing matters with a man who watched my friend sinking and did nothing. This was the friend I had known since the year 2000. I still had some loyalty and respect for what they had all been through and the hardships they all faced.