A mother is facing prosecution under race discrimination laws after objecting to hospital staff from a specific ethnic minority group being present at the birth of her child.
The woman was in the delivery room at the maternity unit and about to undergo a caesarian section when she made her demand.
It was not clear whether she was referring to black employees, those of Asian origin, or any other race at Milton Keynes Hospital in Buckinghamshire.
Now, admittedly, if it were me. I would just want the best that the hospital had to offer but in this case, whose human rights come first?
The woman giving birth, who is after all "the customer" or the staffs?
Finally, what would happen in a similar situation if a Muslim woman didn't want a male present and wanted to be attended to only by women (which incidentally was something I was offered 25 years ago).
You see, you take things too far and someone will always think their rights are more important than someone elses!
It should be the same for everybody, so muslim women should not be allowed to reject male staff. I bet they do though and I bet the authorities put up with it.
ReplyDeletePlaying the human rights card is one of the easiest ways to reinforce a prejudice, but not of course if you're English. Then the opposite is true.
ReplyDeletePolitical Correctness has made things so much worse. We are not allowed our "likes and dislikes" to be taken into consideration when we make decisions that are important to us.
ReplyDeleteFor example. My daughter chooses to go to a white English Doctor. She does it simply because she finds foreigners difficult to understand.
My mother was the same.
A very sick cantankerous old woman who frequently told the carers not to come back if she couldn't understand them...
It's more evidence of PC coming crashing down as differing righteous groups clash with each other.
ReplyDeleteHere we have the womens' rights at all costs crowd (emphasised for the pregnancy aspect) vs the ethnic diversity gang.
It's an increasing phenomenon.
It was bound to backfire on us. The fact that not one persons "human rights" are more important than anothers, makes it so totally confusing.
ReplyDeleteLets be honest here, the only way round this is a table of whose rights come first. Unless you can think of another way?
Practically speaking, I don't think any of us can pick and choose what staff we get in a hospital, they are overstretched as it is.
ReplyDeleteI do agree she should have the "right" to stipulate who she should NOT be treated by provided she was prepared to put up with the consequence, ie probably not having enough, or indeed any staff to treat her at all.
To be fair, there was a local case recently ( lots of fuss in the press ) about a woman who had recieved terrible 'hospitality services' in hospital. " left to starve" "not washed properly" &etc. A member of staff told me later that she had been rude and offensive to 'darkie' catering staff and nursing assistants. ie she had been offered those non-medical services but had refused them and out of solidarity, the other staff left her to stew. Can't say that I blame them.
ReplyDeleteI still have disturbing memories of how my mother in law got treated in hospital by "foreign staff". I can't help thinking that perhaps the prejudice runs both ways sometimes. They punished her for complaining (justified in her case) and I was horrified at their cruelty.
ReplyDelete