G-20 Police wanted health care workers to violate Hippocratic Oath, nurses claim

There was a story on the radio last night, not long after Pointy Head announced there would be an independent inquiry into the G-20 debacle.   The report (I think it was on Radio One) was that some health care workers were claiming they were tending to those injured during the altercation with the police and the cops were telling the nurses and doctors not to help the protestors, that it was "wrong" to do so.

This line of reasoning, if the nurses' claims are accurate, would be as silly as those neo-cons in the States who want people to stop donating money to the Red Cross because it is helping those in the fields in Afghanistan who may be on the side of the Taliban and other "irregular" forces.     Since when did the Hippocratic Oath apply only to the law abiding (presuming any laws were broken, and I don't think any were by at least the vast majority)?   Last time I checked, those in the health care business serve all regardless of political motivation.   Or they're supposed to.

If this claim is proven to be true, then it naturally raises the question whether the police planted agents provacateurs in the Black Bloc.   And if so, who in the Executive ordered such plants.   The scary thing is, at least there's a Charter of Rights to fall back on, which allows Canadians to sue the government if their rights have been violated.   Many of those who "support the police" also want to repeal the Charter and such redress guarantees on the grounds that the police are "pure" and therefore can do no wrong.

If the police want the neutrality on which health care workers operate to be repealed the police should damn well do so by petition to the legislature, not during the heat of a provacative situation like what happened in Toronto last week, so that their aims are fully transparent.

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