adminSikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) have expressed shock and disbelief following publication of doping by young children in swimming in the country and threatened to report doctors administering that to the Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe.
Parents might be prosecuted since the victims, some of whom are as young as nine years, are minors and cannot be prosecuted.
“ZADHR is working on a programme with the Ministry of Health and Childcare and the Ministry of Education to raise awareness on the negative effects of performance enhancing substances in young athletes and sports persons. It is very worrying that senior medical practitioners are promoting these activities that can ruin the athletes’ lives and careers.
We call on the responsible authorities to launch a thorough investigation and leave no stone unturned in addressing this problem. Use of performance enhancing drugs is cheating and unsportsmanlike behaviour. Many athletes have been disgraced after testing positive to banned substances and Zimbabwe should step up efforts against use of these illegal substances,” said Doctor Evans Masitara, the ZADHR secretary general.
Part of ZADHR’s duties involves monitoring the ethics and responsibilities of doctors concerning human rights issues including; documenting and investigating cases where doctors have participated in human rights abuses such as the use of medical skills in torture.
The association also investigates falsification of medical evidence in relation to those whose rights have been violated.
“We are running an awareness programme against doping in young sports persons and our focus was mainly in rugby where we believed doping was rampant as youngsters take anabolic steroids but we were shocked that swimming is also a niche, we can’t believe that people can do such a thing to children as young as nine and action must be taken immediately, we might have to report some of these doctors to the medical council,” said Dr Masitara.
The Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe is a statutory body established in terms of Section 29 of the Health Professions Act (Chapter 27:19) whose responsibility is to regulate the medical and dental professions in Zimbabwe. The functions of the Council are inter-alia to register, educate and discipline the medical and dental professions. It has the power to issue practicing certificates to registered persons, cancel or suspend such certificates in terms of the Act.
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