Posted on 02/26/2008 1:50:01 PM PST by scouse
Muslim medics in Alder Hey stand-off Feb 26 2008
EXCLUSIVE by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Echo
HEALTH officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.
Women students at Liverpool’s Alder Hey children’s hospital have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands because it is regarded as immodest.
Minutes of a clinical academics’ meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children’s hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns.
Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University, and Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to “scrub” as this left her forearms exposed.
Some students have said that they would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, but hygiene experts said no exceptions should be made on religious grounds.
A Royal Liverpool hospital spokesman said they had experienced issues of Muslim staff not sanitising their forearms with alcohol gel although this had now been addressed.
Dr Steve Ryan, medical director at Alder Hey said that while the “bare below the elbows” dress code is a matter of patient safety, the trust would work with Muslim students to find a solution.
He said: “We specify bare below elbows, no wrist watches, nail varnish or false nails in clinical areas.Š
“Good hand hygiene is one of the most important and simplest actions we can take to prevent healthcare associated infections.
“A number of female Muslim students had approached the University of Liverpool to ask if we would provide facilities for them to change their outerwear and Hijab for theatre scrubs.
“We were pleased to accommodate this request and these facilities have now been incorporated.”
Dr Charles Tannock, a Conservative MEP and former hospital consultant, said: “These students are being trained using taxpayers’ money and they have a duty of care to their patients not to put their health at risk.
“Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if they feel unable to abide by the guidelines everyone else has to follow.”
But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.
It said: “No practising Muslim woman – doctor, medical student, nurse or patient – should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow.”
New rules for doctors
NEW Department of Health guidance introduced this month stipulates all doctors must be “bare below the elbow”.
The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C.difficile), which have claimed the lives of hundreds.
Included in the rules are further infection control measures such as a ban on wrist watches, nail varnish, jewellery and false nails in clinical areas.
The code of practice will help NHS bodies to plan and implement how they can prevent and control healthcare- associated infections. It sets out criteria by which managers of NHS organisations are to ensure that patients are cared for in a clean environment and the risk of infections is kept as low as possible.
carolineinnes@liverpoolecho.co.uk
“HEALTH officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.”
There is no crisis. They either adhere to the rules, or find another job.
Right this seems an easy issue to me. People who can not do the job for physical, moral or religious reasons need to find another job.
They hate the West. Why are they here ?
Kick the idiots out. They are there to save lives. NOT practice their religion. Send them all packing back to wherever they came from and let them deal with life back there.
Get rid of them. See how easy it is?
Or they can work in Muslim-only hospitals or wards where they’ll find people willing to take the risk, in the name of Islam of course, of being subjected to the germs these women will be carrying because they refuse to wash properly.
I find it ironic that these Muslim women are being so graciously accommodated because I’m certain that if a patient demand treatment by a non-Muslim for the sake of cleanliness, they’d be called bigots or islamophobes.
These Islamic fools are begging the rest of the world to go Nazi on them, one of these years.
Are these fighting words?
Why are they here?
Because their technology and science stopped advancing in the 12th-13th century “due to religious beliefs”.
Solution: Tell them to be careful of the possible doorknob/posterior contact as they leave ASAP.
Seriously, though, this is just another example, or another front, in the war of
“let’s see how far we can push these people into peaceful submission before we have to force them there”
They don’t sound smart enough to be there in the first place.
They’re probably not. But those who allowed them to be there are even less intelligent.
Better to have patients die of MRSA than offend fundamentalists who believe the patients should be dead.
An interested trade off.
Either way, kowtowing will kill patients.
FIRE THEM. Let them start their own hospital, complete with 11th-century technology.
Time to quit knuckling under to these savages.
How about sulfuric acid?
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