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Undercover police working at drugs projects and NHS counselling services.

anon | 13.03.2010 07:17 | SOCPA | Repression | Social Struggles | Terror War | South Coast | World

It might seem obvious to some people that it happens but there are some people who still believe that they can trust their GPs, nurses, drugs counsellors etc. Doctors are supposed to be bound by confidentiality but nevertheless discuss patients who are activists or other suspects with NETCU, the drugs squad etc. If you thought that your medical records are safe, confodential and private, think on.

While NETCU and MI5 are described as "out of control" by the Independent newspaper many won't fully grasp just what this means unless you have been on the recieving end of this and appreciate just how far they will go to disprupt activists and even ordinary citizens who are not extreme but who are seen as "dissenters" or a "nuisance" or those they want to force into becoming informants. Many affected are Muslim but this will, can and does apply to political activists in the UK including Northern Ireland.

The Independent newspaper reported that Somali youth were persecuted by MI5 who were either accessing medical records or were obtaining information from a member of staff where his wife had just given birth. An MI5 officer who was trying to force him into becoming an informant telephoned and congratulated him on the birht of his child and gave details including the child's name, weight, time of birth etc. This is a real low..MI5 threatening babies.

GPs are not immune from pressure from the secret police. The GP of an activist who has suffered persecution from the secret police was targeted himself by them. They were demanding to know what the activist was telling the GP and wanted to see the patient's/actitivist's/community medical records. They started haning around outside the doctor's home and even cajoled uniformed police to sit outside his house. On at least two occasions he was threatened with arrest for "interfering with his dustbin" when he put his rubbish into it. The police claimed that they had "seen him interfering with the bin before" and would arrest him if he did it again. They eventually got to him [in more ways than one]. They have demanded that he cuts a precsiption of tranquilizers for a patient they regard as a "nuisance" which is being regarded a spunishment tactic rather than anything else. They demanded that a patient that they were "intested in" had a valium prescription reduced / cut off [probaly because they wanted this person to inform and see the valuim as making the information less officially credible]. They told him to advise a patient to "go and visit their family miles away" as they saw this activist as a nuisance and wanted them far away. These patients were confiding in the GP about harrassment by the security services. They have lied to the doctor about patients complaining about them cliaming that they "know" that the patients are "drug users", "alcoholics", "mentally ill" etc...each of them had complained about harrasment by the security services and they knew it. The GP becmae under so much prseeure from patients who were reporting stress, weird goings on that started showing a pattern [stalking, demands to become informants, threats, persecutin etc] that he nearly had a breakdown himself. He told a patient that he too was being stalked and harrased and his own behaviour was being affected. He told a patient "there's always someone outside my house, I know they're out there".
A man in London was sent details of his medical records that he believed no one knew about as part of a serious of threats and harassment from the security services staff.
One victim was described as a "ranting liar" by the security services to the GP who knew that the patient wasn't lying and that other people were saying the same thing and were being harassed...they were also the same patients that the seurity service police were demanding information about.
The GP knew that some of his patients were being harrassed about each other and being asked to inform on and persecute each other by the security services who were then demanding from the GP details about what they were saying. It has been causing mental anguish to the patients affected and to the GPs, other dcotors, reception staff and nurses.

Drugs services are places where people believe that they can get help, confide in people who won't betray them and who they beleive are there to help. These projects are employing drugs sqaud staff and members of the security services. It has been reported by service users that the staff have "become like the police", aggressive, disparaging, unkind, rude etc and have no counselling skills but act as interrorgaters, demanding names of dealers [especially Muslim or political or both], asking to sit in on psychiatric sessions with clients, telling that they can do home visists when they are not supposed to etc. One client confided in one of these staff that he was being harrassed by the security services and almost staright away he was told he ahd "mental health problems" but bizarrely was not allowed to see anyone about this. He was denied acess to mental health counselling..presumably because they didn't want what was happeneing to get out any further.

This an appalling breach of trust and is being used to target people, especially vulnerable people.

The security services are human beings, members of staff who are paid to do a job. They believe that they are unaccountable to anybody. What they are doing is not "in the public interest"..it's harrassment and it is achieving resentment and a growing anger in communities and within the NHS.

Details of patients are now being put on a database accessible to anyone including the police...which is frightening.

This country is descending into fascism at a rate of knots.

anon

Comments

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more details

13.03.2010 09:07

Hi can you give us more details of where the security services are working as drugs workers please, Are you implying this is a one off specific to gain information about a 'suspect' or that you think its more broad than that ,I work in drugs support and find it hard to believe its common practice ,more info please

Concerned of gipton [ the real one]


I know for a fact that it's not confined to the investigation of just 1 suspect.

13.03.2010 12:25

This has affected more than one person and is combined with other harassment by the security services including threats.

Turning Point are a drugs project that knowingly have drugs squad and security people working there. A client realised that a counsellor working there wasn't what he seemed and other workers there agreed.

A GP has spoken about this to patients and staff having been followed, harassed and coerced and having had patients report the harassment to their GPs. The harassment from the security services is leading to the patients having problems causing illness.

The NHS is not supposed to be an extension of the police and if patients can no longer trust doctors then we are in a police state for real.

It's going on in London for certain. We don't know if this is just a couple of "bad apples" in MI5 or whether this is widespread. We know about it in London and who was affected but can only guess as to whether or not the same thing is widespread across the country.

anon


Complain

14.03.2010 07:55

As a midwife and an activist I find this post concerns me both as a care giver and reciever. Any health professional who gives information about patients to the police will be in deep shit, if proven could well lose their job and get struck off, unless a crime is really serious such as a murder or rape. The moral reason being that if the general public cannot trust the NHS they will not get treatment imapcting on their own health and others. Someone who has sex with lots of people avoiding STD clinics will potentially go on to infect hundreds even thousands of others for example.
If in the case of the person whose baby the police knew all about a stonking complaint to both the hospital and the NMC (Nurses and Midwives Council) might help. When I was stopped by anti terror police coming back into the UK by anti terror police I was told that if I refused to answer questions (any questions) I would be committing an offence under the Terrorism Act 2000, which is unique in its power to potentially coerce health professionals, solicitors etc into breaching confidentiality in itself a crime. It might be necessary to get the unions involved i.e the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwifery to name a few. If anyone does feel that health professionals are being pressurised maybe contact the relevant union as well as or instead of complaining. If this rot really has started it needs stamping on fast.

Lynn Sawyer


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