New NHS rules allow staff to deny care to patients who show racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ views, but this may lead to subjective judgement and won’t protect all personnel, one NHS employee believes.
“Nobody wants to see [general practitioners] threatened, so why use the usual victim groups, and not simply have an arrangement for all bad behavior?” Dr. David Mackereth rhetorically asked as he discussed the issue with RT.
Earlier this week, the UK announced new rules for NHS that are about to take effect in April. They basically allow doctors to refuse treatment in non life-threatening cases to people who are acting in any discriminatory manner, be it racism, sexism or homophobia.
Rules permitting medics to do just the same to patients, who were verbally aggressive or outright physically violent, were already in place for quite some time, Mackereth assumed that the whole issue might be more about capitalizing on identity politics issues rather than about really stopping abuse.
He also raised concerns about who would eventually judge whether one is acting discriminatory or not and make decisions that could have adverse effects on patients’ health.
“Two days ago I was working in an emergency department, and a patient threatened, in no uncertain terms, to kill me if I did not leave the cubicle immediately. I am very unhappy about this, but nothing will be done. If I was gay, perhaps I could have called this homophobia, and then it would be a gravely serious matter. ”
So who get to decide what is ‘homophobic’?
Mackereth was sacked from his post with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) after he refused to call a transgender woman “she,” justifying it with his Christian beliefs, and later lost his employment tribunal. He fears that the new rules could be a step towards actually imposing certain ideology on people under the penalty of being denied medical assistance if they refuse to embrace it.
“I have for some time been concerned that we, as NHS staff, might be forced to sign a declaration affirming LGBTQI+ values in order to work,” he said, warning that the rules for patients could also at some point go further and require “to subscribe to a certain political worldview. Any refusal to do so might mean no treatment, and maybe no social security either.”
The decision to introduce new rules came amid reports that more than one in four NHS workers experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or members of the public while 15 percent faced physical violence. The latter was also the case for more than one third of the ambulance trust staff.
The number of NHS workers, who said they were subjected to some form of discrimination, stood at 7.2 percent.
